How school bullies ripped this happy family apart

Just days after kissing another boy for a dare, 15-year-old Dominic Crouch jumped off a six-storey building. His suicide prompted his devastated parents to campaign against homophobic bullying. But, as Patrick Strudwick reports, there was further tragedy to follow

It started with a phone call from the hospital. ‘They said Dominic’s in A&E and he’s very poorly,’ recalls Paola Crouch, staring out of the window of her spick-and-span living room in Gretton, Gloucestershire. Photos of her son Dominic, her daughter Giulia and her husband Roger perch on every bookcase and windowsill. Dominic was 15 when the call came, on the afternoon of Tuesday 18 May 2010. 

The nurse who spoke to Paola phoned her on Dominic’s mobile, so Paola, in shocked disbelief, decided it was a prank. ‘I sent a text back saying, “Whoever you are, give Dominic his phone back!”’           Read Here

 
The hospital rang again, insistent, telling her they were sending a police car. Terrified, she phoned Roger – a manager for a young people’s charity – who dashed home and drove her and 18-year-old Giulia to the hospital.