A 21-year-old father committed suicide after he was told he couldn’t see his baby anymore.
One week before he took his own life, Harry Slaughter threatened probation services that he would kill himself if they prevented him from seeing his baby, Frankie.
The young dad was banned from visiting his child after he was convicted for texting a schoolgirl he met on a train and asked her to perform a sexual act.
Harry tried to commit suicide two months later but police managed to rescue him. He was then detained under the Mental Health Act and checked by numerous mental health professionals.
However, they all decided that the young dad should not be admitted to hospital.
His mother, Jane Ward, said that her son had already tried to take his own life five times since he was a teen after her marriage collapsed with his dad.
Ward said that during the months before he died, he told her he was having panic attacks, trouble sleeping and eating, and hearing voices in his head.
“He would send me texts threatening to do it [commit suicide] and I would be talking him out of it,” Ward said.
“He said he was getting nowhere with the mental health people and was constantly phoning me up crying. One time he was threatening to jump in front of a train and I had to talk him from the train station back to his home.
“Literally every morning I was waking up thinking ‘is this going to be a good day or a bad day.”
The mother-of-two added: “I felt he was let down in a big way [by mental health services] and now I have lost my baby boy.
“A little boy has lost his dad and he will never know how Harry loved him with all his heart. No-one can describe the heartache we are all feeling now.”
Cops went to his apartment in West Sussex but police constable Neil Maloney said he thought Harry wasn’t at immediate risk of harm.
“He said he was upset as he was not permitted to see his son due to an outcome of a case against him,” he said.
“Probation were overseeing his rehabilitation, so to speak, as a result of that case. He wanted to see his son and that was very much very clear to me. He blamed the probation service for him not being able to do so. He said he made that threat as he wanted to be taken seriously and didn’t think they were taking him seriously.
“He said not being able to see his son was having an adverse effect on him.”
Probation officer Kimberley French had a conversation with him before he passed away. “He said he didn’t feel anyone was helping him and his attempt of suicide was to show me and social services that he really wanted to see his son so someone would do something about it and push us,” she shared.
“He told me the reason he would hang himself outside the probation office is so he wouldn’t have to be identified by his family and he would be found quickly.”
Miss French broke down in tears when Harry’s mother asked why she only sent an email to his doctor instead of calling mental health services.
“It’s a question I ask myself all the time,” she expressed. “Harry didn’t present himself as suicidal that day and he wasn’t talking to me about wanting to do anything again.”
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