Lessons Learned from the Death of Our Daughter – “A Parent’s Perspective”.
- Ellen Roome
- Jul 26
- 3 min read
I would like to introduce you to two incredibly brave parents whom I’ve had the privilege of meeting on this difficult journey.
Their beautiful daughter was just thirteen when she was groomed online and tragically lost her life. What they’ve written below is raw, honest, and utterly heartbreaking — but it’s also vital reading for anyone who cares about protecting children.
They didn’t ask to become campaigners. They’re grieving parents, like so many of us, who have been forced to carry this weight because the systems that should have protected their daughter failed her.
Please take the time to read their words. Share them. Talk about them. Their message deserves to be heard. We will not stop fighting until the truth is faced and real change is made. For their daughter. For Jools. For every child.
Our daughter died as a result of online grooming. She was just thirteen years old.
Following her death, a joint agency enquiry was launched to determine what lessons can be learned. That is right and necessary. But in our experience, it has not gone far enough.
As her parents, we have not been invited to share what we know, what we’ve learned, or what we’ve come to understand in the painful aftermath of losing our child. This may seem like a procedural oversight, but it points to a deeper systemic issue:
When governments, regulators and official enquiries fail to see the full picture, it is bereaved parents grieving, traumatised and exhausted, who are left to fight for the truth.
And the truth is this: our daughter’s death was preventable. But the action needed to protect her and countless others, was delayed, diluted, or denied by those in power.
The danger of online grooming has been known since at least 2017, when it became a criminal offence for adults to send sexual messages to children. By then, cases of digital grooming were already rising sharply. In the years that followed, the number of recorded grooming offences increased by more than 80%.
In 2019, the UK government published the Online Harms White Paper, proposing a duty of care on tech platforms. But what followed was four years of slow progress and political distraction under successive Conservative governments. During this time, the number of children being harmed online continued to grow. So did the evidence. And still, meaningful regulation was delayed.
The Online Safety Act, passed in October 2023, came far too late for our daughter. Even then, enforcement only began in mid-2025, by which point the apps and loopholes that exposed her had already done irreversible damage. Platforms like LMK and WhatsApp, which allowed predators to reach her directly remain widely available to young people with little or no oversight. And organisations like Ofcom, despite being tasked with regulation, have repeatedly failed to act with the urgency and strength required to protect children.
We now hear the current government speak of reform, transparency, and safety. These words are welcome. But as campaigners like Ellen Roome have rightly warned, we have heard them before. The promises of one government are often undone by the inaction of the next. Unless there is a serious break with this cycle of delay and denial, more children will die, and more parents will be left to carry what we now carry.
This is not just about one app, or one agency, or one enquiry. It is about a culture of deferral where warnings are ignored, safeguards are postponed, and grieving families are told, after the fact, that “lessons will be learned.”
We are sharing this not to point fingers, but to say what must be said:
Our daughter died not only because a predator found her, but because systems failed to stop him.
Those failures began years ago and were allowed to continue across successive governments.
The burden of change now falls on people who loved her the most, and who lost her in the most unimaginable way.
We do not want this burden. But if no one else will carry it, we will.
Two grieving parents
United Kingdom
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