Izzy Dix (pictured below), a gifted pupil who had
ambitions to go to Oxford University, took her
own life after complaining she could no longer
cope with being bullied, both at school and
online.
‘Izzy would come home and sob in my arms"
Her mother Gabbi said "They called her “ugly”,
“freak”, “frigid”. If she put her hands up in class,
she’d be labelled a “swot” and they’d snigger at
her, or make crude comments. They’d exclude
her from events, tell her to go home, she wasn’t
wanted. They’d turn their backs on her, literally.
When she did come home, it didn’t stop,
because it doesn’t, these days. They name-
called her by text, then online. She’d log onto
Facebook and get abuse. Then onto that awful
site Ask.fm and be subjected to filth."
14 yr old Izzy committed suicide on September
17th. Her mother explained what happened that
night
"When she came home from school that night,
she seemed tired and a bit cranky. We had
words because I wanted to watch The Great
British Bake Off and she didn’t. But there was
nothing to suggest she was going to do what she
did. I remember she painted her nails - she was
so meticulous about how she looked - then went
up to her room and did her homework, had a
shower, got her bag ready for school, laid out
her uniform. I popped in and we had another
chat about how the bullying was getting on top
of her. It was nothing we hadn’t done 100 times
before, and I’d always give her the talk about
how she was stronger than the bullies.
‘Then I went downstairs while she got ready for
bed. I had a cup of tea and a cigarette — she
hates me smoking so I did it outside. I was gone
15 minutes, tops. In that 15 minutes my life
was destroyed.’
When she came back inside, Gabbi went back
upstairs to see if Izzy was getting into bed, but
the bedroom door did not swing back as usual.
‘Something was blocking it, and it was Izzy,’ she
says, and breaks down completely.
Her description of the hours that followed is too
awful to relate in detail, but she managed to get
her daughter’s body down and dial 999, then
ran hysterically into the street. Neighbours tried
to revive Izzy while she ‘just took off’.
‘It’s all a blur. At one point I ran into a car. A
police officer had to restrain me.
‘I remember him saying, “I am so sorry to have
to do this” as he got me to the ground.’
Not long before her suicide, Izzy wrote a
heartbreaking poem about her ordeal. She called
it I Give Up. See it below
