'I just want to let go'
Archie Battersbee's desperate Whatapp messages have been revealed as a corner ruled the schoolboy died
“inadvertently during a prank or experiment that went wrong”.
Archie was found unconscious with a ligature around his neck at his home in Southend, Essex, on April 7 last year and died four months later in hospital after his parents lost a lengthily court battle with medics over the withdrawal of his life support.
The 12-year-old's family initially feared he could have taken part in a social media ‘blackout challenge’, but the inquest heard police found no evidence to support this.
Senior coroner Lincoln Brookes recorded Archie's death as an accident and said that although there was evidence of Archie experiencing a low mood in the last 12 months of his life, there was no sign he intended to harm himself on the day he was injured.
Investigators found Archie was in Whatsapp groups called “Help” and “I’m depressed”, the court heard.
A forensic analysis of the boy's phone uncovered a number of messages dating back to 2021 in which he refers to experiencing low mood and in one message to his mum, Hollie Dance, last year he wrote: “Do you know how sometimes I think about self harm. I bet you didn’t. That’s how harsh my depression is."
He added: “Sometimes I want to end it and I think about how many people I would let down.”
And later wrote: “I just want to let go” and “just give up everything”.
In February, in a Whatsapp group chat, Archie told friends he rated his physical appearance as one out of ten.
“That’s why I’m so depressed all the time but I have tried and thought about killing myself," he wrote to his friends.
Detective sergeant Tiffany Gore, who analysed the phone, noted that there was no evidence of a suicide note and that Archie had been looking ahead and browsing online for a new coat on the day on the day he was injured.
Her colleague, detective inspector Sarah Weeks, added that “it may not be possible to establish what motivated Archie”.
“He was looking forward to his first MMA fight and had chosen the music for his entrance," she said.
"He was looking to buy a coat.”
In a statement read to the court by the coroner, Archie's older half brother Thomas Summers described Archie as a "joker" and said the boy had never said anything to him that "caused me concern for his emotional well-being".
A full inquest is to be held in Chelmsford on February 7.
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