Stef Hall’s article about Lurid was released in Saturday’s edition of the Lancashire Evening Post.
I have no further comments about the article at this time.
Suicide chatroom is closed down
The founder of a controversial American online suicide forum today pledged to take responsibility and close the chatroom down, following pressure from the Evening Post.
Married father-of-two Christopher Ford, who founded the Lurid.org site, has pledged to dismantle the suicide forum element in support of our “Stop pedlars of death” campaign.
Mr Ford, who is based in Louisiana, USA, works by day as a suicide counselor in an organisation similar to the Samaritans - and initially set the Lurid site up to write commentaries on current thinking on suicide.
But the site developed into a forum for suicidal people, including discussion of the best suicide methods and advice on how to kill yourself.
Earlier this year one man, Alan Quigley, from County Meath, Republic of Ireland, left notes on the site threatening to commit suicide.
Just days later his siblings posted angry messages saying he had committed suicide after surfing on the site. Mr Ford was forced to step in, but at that point refused to take the forum offline.
Today Mr Ford, 34, pledged to take his suicide forum down after hearing of the Evening Post’s campaign.
He explained: “The objective of setting up the site was somewhere for me to write articles and commentaries. I really didn’t set out to court a forum for suicidal people. It just happened.
“A colleague of mine committed suicide. After he died it was a very big shock to me. I realised suicide really cut across all boundaries, and it made me think.
“I started noticing some messages posted on other news sites on young people using the net to make suicide pacts. So I wrote a couple of articles on it.
“At that point the Google search engine started to bring my site up when people searched for suicide or similar. I started getting a lot of traffic (e-mailers) and eventually it built into a kind of community.”
The site has received around 5,000 comments since it was set up in 1999.
Mr Ford said: “It alarmed me from a pragmatic standpoint. But I started to monitor the site and if spotted anybody trying to use the site to establish a suicide pact I would remove the message. I didn’t want it to be used for that.”
But tragedy struck on Valentine’s Day this year when a suicidal man from Southern Ireland, read messages on lurid.org and left threats to kill himself.
Just two days later his furious siblings postead a message saying that he had carried out his threat.
Mr Ford said: “I don’t feel responsible for Alan Quigley’s death.. If I remember rightly his message was up there before I had time to take them off. I felt bad that he died but not responsible. I felt my site would help people. Suicide is something that is taboo and until you give people an open forum, like my site, it will remain that way.”
But he admitted that he will now close the chatroom over fears of prosecution.
“I understand there are other people who use the chatroom for more sinister purposes but I believe the benefits people get from sharing their feelings far outweigh that.”
Mr Ford agreed that his forum could inspire vulnerable people reading the messages to take their own life.
He said: “The site will stay up but I will take down the suicide chatroom. Your campaign has got me thinking maybe it is time to take it down.
“I can clearly see where the Evening Post is coming from and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your campaign to stamp out pro-suicide sites on the Internet.
“Although my site was suicide prevention-focused, I can see where it could be used for other reasons and because of that, I am immediately removing all suicide related discussion.
“I will replace the open forums with links to suicide-prevention organizations like the Samaritans and similar organizations in the States.”
Tony Cox, co-ordinator of the Papyrus support organisation, in East Lancashire, said: “We are very pleased that he has decided to take down his suicide forum, but we still have a long way to go.”
If you would like to contribute to the campaign in any way, e-mail Stef Hall at stef.hall@lep.co.uk
November 27th, 2004 at 6:19 pm
Thank you Chris. Congratulations. You let us believe in you, you helped us when we were at the stage of thinking like that, and then you abandoned us. You lied to us, you said you would not allow this training to change you, and you have.
Sometimes, the hardest thing is when you realise that someone who promsed never to let you go through this alone, has in fact left you to go through this alone.
Dont fool yourself, you may not be responsible for what has happened so far, like i told you, you cant save everyone, but you ARE responsible for the effects of the shockwaves caused by what you are doing now. You are responsible for EVERYONE you have let down by doing this, and that is something you WILL have to live with forever.
Jo