The humorous, sort, 12-year-old who took a deadly overdose

When 12-year-old Semina Halliwell was once mendacity in health facility, she requested the advisor if she was once going to die. Semina informed him she had sought after “fall asleep for a few days”.

She was once positioned in an prompted coma however died quickly after, on 12 June 2021.

3 days previous, she had posted on social media: “I might chuckle and smile on a daily basis however I am in such a lot ache.” The similar day, she went to her bed room and swallowed her mom’s prescription drugs.

An inquest, which concluded on Thursday, heard proof about Semina’s mind-set within the months main as much as her dying.

“She went from being a vibrant and bubbly lady, to being depressed and withdrawn,” Semina’s mom, Rachel Halliwell, informed the court docket. She spoke whilst clutching a portrait of her kid and her daughter’s favorite denim jacket.

On Thursday, coroner Johanna Thompson recorded a brief narrative conclusion.

She stated Semina had “a posh social historical past” and was once “exceptionally inclined”.

“Her dying arose because of taking an overdose of her mom’s prescription drugs while in a state of misery and her intent at the moment is unknown,” she stated.

Rachel says Semina was once a unusual kid who beloved staring at TV, taking ballet and faucet dancing classes. She’d had the similar two best possible buddies since she was once 4 years outdated, she informed the BBC.

“She spent all of her youth making a song and dancing on her telephone,” Rachel says. “She would faux to be on a display the place she was once the host.”

However inside months, she says a series of occasions started that culminated in Semina’s tragic dying.

Right through the summer season of 2020, on the top of the Covid lockdown, an older boy started messaging her on Snapchat. Rachel believes he was once grooming Semina.

Semina then began secondary faculty that September. After, the exchange in her had been “very fast”, Rachel says.

“We would long past from staring at Barbie cartoons to changing into very withdrawn and moody,” she says.

Semina started self-harming and was once identified with autism spectrum dysfunction.

“As a result of her autism was once sensory she struggled with garments – the texture of them, the labels – she would cross out in naked toes within the pouring rain and not really feel the chilly,” her mum says.

Semina additionally started dressed in tights and gloves to cover self-harming scars, and was once making herself ill after consuming.

The day prior to Mom’s Day, in March 2021, Semina informed her mum she have been sexually assaulted by means of an older boy within the woods a couple of months previous. She stated the older boy have been messaging her on Snapchat.

“She stated she felt terrible, she hated herself, she felt grimy,” Rachel says.

When Semina informed her mom, Rachel inspired her to inform Merseyside Police. However the circle of relatives insist officials did not make stronger Semina correctly.

They are saying the 12-year-old was once informed it will be a sophisticated case, that it would take 18 months to come back to court docket, and that it would boil all the way down to her phrase towards the boy’s.

They left it to Semina to make a decision whether or not she sought after to pursue a prosecution.

The circle of relatives has since made 13 lawsuits to Merseyside Police about its dealing with of the allegation of rape made by means of Semina, in addition to the abuse they won, each on-line and from the area people.

The inquest concluded that not one of the government who handled Semina will have averted her dying.

The coroner concluded from the proof that Semina was once “extremely inclined” however she didn’t trust submissions from the circle of relatives that Merseyside Police, Semina’s faculty, well being trusts and Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council had breached their operational tasks.

“The proof has no longer published to me any indication that an actual and fast chance to Semina’s existence was once identified to any of the state companies at any related time limit which might have made her dying preventable,” she stated on the finish of the inquest.

Merseyside Police reiterated the coroner’s discovering that there was once no advice of any systemic breach at the a part of the drive and no proof government will have averted Semina’s dying.

A police spokesperson informed the BBC: “We want to categorical our ideas and condolences to Semina’s mum and circle of relatives.”

After her circle of relatives reported the incident, a marketing campaign of bullying towards Semina started – together with on Snapchat – the inquest heard.

She had despatched a unadorned {photograph} of herself to the boy, which was once circulated in school and on-line.

So too had been movies of Semina being “jumped” and attacked from at the back of by means of teams of ladies on a couple of events.

“She went downhill, she could not cope,” Rachel says. “The bullying was once horrendous. ‘The largest slag in 12 months 7’ – that is how she was once referred to on-line.”

“This example presentations transparent, systematic screw ups from Snapchat to proactively reasonable its products and services,” stated Andy Burrows, leader government of the Molly Rose Basis, a charity arrange after the dying of Molly Russell.

“Simply consider the corrosive impact that that should have had on her neatly being and her psychological well being, to grasp that the ones movies had been being shared, to grasp that you realize each time that she was once getting a ping on her telephone that can neatly were additional abuse, additional messages.”

A spokesperson for Snapchat described the case as tragic, announcing “our hearts cross out to Semina’s circle of relatives”. The company works “in a couple of tactics to take a look at to forestall and take motion on this sort of behaviour,” they added.

“The one those that had been serving to her had been myself and her mum, and we were not certified,” Semina’s aunt, Clare Halliwell, informed the BBC. “We would by no means skilled this prior to, and we had been begging everyone who was once certified to lend a hand, and so they were not listening.”

Ahead of her dying, Semina’s social media posts and WhatsApp messages turned into increasingly more relating to. In posts learn out in court docket, she stated she had “no feeling” and felt “ruined as an individual”. “I’m in such ache. I simply wish to be entire once more,” Semina wrote.

The evening she took the overdose, police had been visiting Semina’s space. When she stated she “had had sufficient”, her mom assumed she intended she was once bored to death with the police being there and of the broader scenario.

She poured a tumbler of juice and went upstairs to her bed room, the place she swallowed a few of capsules from her mom’s prescription drugs.

The legacy of that day weighs closely on her family members.

Semina and her best possible pal Lincoln O’Neill had been “inseparable” from the age of 4.

“She was once wonderful, she was once humorous, sort – she had a grin that might illuminate the entire room,” he says, sitting in her memorial lawn on the native Catholic number one faculty they each attended.

He too spotted a large exchange in Semina after they moved as much as secondary faculty.

“We began noticing her self-harming and it was once horrifying to peer.” He says she had confided in him in regards to the alleged sexual attack.

“It’s essential to see it took an impact on her. She began striking out with new teams of other people.” He feels now that she began “happening the flawed direction”.

Within the aftermath of Semina’s dying, Lincoln has dropped out of college.

“It was once simply an excessive amount of as a result of each unmarried day there have been consistent reminders that she’s long past,” he says.

Rachel informed the BBC that since Semina’s dying she has most definitely reported greater than 100 incidents to police, together with other people threatening her different kids, and kicking the door in their circle of relatives house and shouting threats.

She says inside an hour of her daughter’s dying, trolls had been posting merciless and taunting messages about her on-line.

“It was once unending,” Rachel says. “They [the trolls] would publish photos of a useless particular person in a coffin and upload the title Semina.” Rachel says any individual even presented a £10,000 praise on-line to someone who would trash her daughter’s grave.

“Any person got here to the grave to consult with her, and after they were given there, it was once simply lined in canine faeces, far and wide the grave,” she says.

Lately, Semina has a brand new black gravestone engraved with a portrait of her dressed in her favorite denim jacket. The inscription reads: “Semina Mary Halliwell. Eternally 12.”

Rachel informed the BBC she sought after responsibility for her daughter’s dying.

“Every so often I don’t believe I have processed that she’s long past,” Rachel says. “She did not want to die.”

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