Burren woman to ‘walk to Westminster’ in campaign to ban online suicide kits

SDLP South Down MP Margaret Ritchie has voiced her support for constituent Patti Boyle’s campaign to have websites encouraging suicide and selling suicide packs outlawed.

Ritchie described the initiative as ‘brave and admirable’

Her 26 year old son, Kevin, died by suicide last autumn using a so called suicide kit that he purchased on the internet. Kevin paid £45 for the kit from a website selling death as “Deliverance.”

Mrs Boyle is walking from Burren to Westminster where she will petition members of Parliament to support her campaign Families Acting Against Suicide Today (FAST).

Margaret Ritchie MP, who signed the petition, spoke to Newry Times. She said:

“This is a very brave and admirable initiative by Patti who has suffered such a deep personal loss with the death of her son Kevin. The sale of these suicide kits online is a very worrying development and legislation must be introduced at Westminster to ban it.”

“The high incidence of suicide in South Down in recent years – in particular among our young people – is devastating the families and friends of victims and affecting the whole community.”

Ritchie added, “I would like to pay tribute to the FAST group and urge people to offer their support to this very worthy campaign.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Aug 30 2012. Filed under Community, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry