Hundreds of Brits used website to look for ‘suicide partner’
Hundreds of Brits used website to look for ‘suicide partner’
More than 700 people in the UK have posted on “partners thread” looking for someone to die with.
More than 700 people in the UK have posted on a pro-suicide website looking for someone to die with, a BBC investigation has found.
The site, which we are not naming, has a members-only section where users can look for a suicide partner.
We have connected several double suicides to the “partners thread”.
Our investigation also found that predators have used the site to target vulnerable women.
In December 2019, Angela Stevens’ 28-year-old son, Brett, travelled from his home in the Midlands to Scotland to meet a woman he had made contact with on the partners thread.
The pair rented an Airbnb and took their lives together.
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Since her son’s death, she has spent years researching the pro-suicide site - in particular, the partners thread.
“It's a very dangerous place,” Angela says.
She compares it to a dark version of a dating app.
“Where else would you go to find a partner to take your own life with?” she says. “It’s just absolutely vile.”
The thread encourages users to end their own lives - and offers instructions on how to do it.
Everyone has the right to die if they want.
While I understand the loved ones point of view it is supremely selfish to say "you have to keep suffering, because I don't want to feel bad."
maybe it will get better. Maybe it won't. If I dont wanna take that gamble anymore I shouldn't be forced to. Especially if its something you have been fighting for years.
I agree with that, but there is not the slightest of chances in hell that making into a thing you do with social media will ever turn out well
Of course the government's answer is to try and ban it, rather than solve the underlying cause of people wanting to use it in the first place.
This isn't anything new, it's been happening since the days of usenet being popular.
Reducing suicide is always approached as trying to block pathways to death, rather than by improving life.
As always with this country it’s putting a plaster over the symptoms rather than addressing the cause.
Or maybe, we should just recognize a person's right to death.
Prepare for the most boomer comment ever...
"Looking for a suicide partner, we used to call that marriage."
The site, which we are not naming
That's a refreshing thing to read
Helen Kite’s sister, Linda, advertised for a partner in 2023.
Linda contacted a man through the partners thread and met him at a hotel in Romford, East London.
They consumed a toxic chemical and died together on 1 July 2023.
But there was worse to come.
In September 2023, Helen’s other sister Sarah - devastated by losing Linda - also went on the forum, ingested the same toxic chemical and died.
What the fuck. This is dark.
Maybe address the underlying reasons people kill themselves, and legalise assisted dying if it's an unsolvable problem, rather than trying to do a bandage solution and try to ban the means for people to kill themselves.