Coroner warns of chatroom dangers

A BRITISH coroner yesterday called for greater public vigilance to combat the danger of internet chatrooms at the inquest into a man who leapt to his death after meeting another man at a chatroom called Assisted Suicide Holidays.

East Sussex coroner Alan Craze said greater police resources should be assigned in a bid to end the threat to the young and vulnerable from “anonymous” criminals who live in a “fantasy world”.

Michael Gooden, 35, from Camberwell, south London, arranged to meet Louis Gillies at Beachy Head cliffs near Eastbourne, a notorious suicide spot.

The pair had discussed suicide at the internet chatroom, which lists the best ways, and places, for people to take their own life.

Mr Gooden, of Camberwell New Road, jumped to his death on June 7 this year. Mr Gillies, of Bank Street, Glasgow, was later charged with assisting a suicide.

But on the day of his trial at Lewes Crown Court, he was found hanged at his Glasgow flat.

Mr Craze recorded a verdict of suicide in the case of Mr Gooden, a postal worker.

He said: “Many people are becoming increasingly worried about certain aspects of the internet and particularly its chatrooms. No doubt they provide a harmless fantasy world for most of their users, but they differ from the telephone as a means of communication in that they provide an opportunity for total anonymity.

“In many cases users are not talking to real persons but to fictionalised characters. This provides the danger for the young, the immature, the mentally fragile and other vulnerable people. The opportunity for taking advantage of others, with little chance of being found out, is always there.

“The media regularly give us examples of fraud, deception and sexual offences being committed with the use of the internet, and now there is this case of encouraging, aiding and abetting, assisting the suicide of another.

“The response can only be to put greater and greater police resources into the detection and deterrence of internet crime, and for the public at large to exercise vigilance if children and others start to show signs of undue influence following the use of the internet.”

The inquest heard there was evidence Mr Gooden and Gillies had been corresponding via the ASH website as early as January 2002.

The pair met for the first time on June 5 last year at Eastbourne, had a meal at a hotel near the 500ft cliffs at Beachy Head and then walked to the cliff edge. A note discovered in Mr Gooden’s jeans pocket had details of an internet cafe in London and on the reverse a phone number, which turned out to be that of Gillies.