SEARCH RESULTS

Ellen, Hollie, Lisa (3 Bereaved Mums) Ellen Roome – a Cheltenham mum who has been at the centre of a high-profile campaign to change the law on social media – is launching a new online safety resource for schools and families in time for the summer holidays. By Chloe Gorman  |  Published Wednesday 2 July 2025 read full article here... https://www.soglos.com/news/community/bereaved-cheltenham-mum-launches-free-online-safety-resource-for-children/25724/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign&utm_content=ap_bdy9fwpksh Cheltenham mum and online safety campaigner, Ellen Roome, is teaming up with other bereaved parents to launch a new, free online safety resource called Click or Quit?. Ellen has been at the centre of a high-profile campaign to change the law on social media , demanding that parents be granted access to their childrens' social media accounts without needing a court order. The move was motivated by the untimely death of her 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney. With no indication of mental health struggles or issues, Jools' family were left without answers after he took his own life and were unable to get access to his social media accounts, to determine whether what he was consuming online contributed to his death. She started a petition to change the law , which gathered over 126,000 signatures and support from celebrities including Frank Bruno and was debated in parliament in January 2025. Now Ellen, along with fellow bereaved parents Hollie Dance and Lisa Keneven, has teamed up with award-winning personal development resource provider 1decision to launch a free resource to teach children about the 'real dangers of online risks and challenges'. With the summer holidays looming and children likely to be spending more time online, the Click or Quit? resource aims to empower children with the knowledge and confidence to understand the risks of these challenges and make safer choices – with one of the resources available being a ready-to-use school assembly for nine to 12-year-olds, or older pupils with additional needs. CEO of 1decision, Hayley Sherwood, said: 'We cannot wait any longer for the government to act. Too many young lives have already been lost... We hope Click or Quit? will help prevent more families from facing what these parents have endured. 'For schools, this assembly covers a range of important topics, including the benefits and risks of communicating online, understanding age restrictions, what to consider before taking part in an online challenge and how to create a positive online experience. It also includes a powerful video featuring Ellen’s story. 'Whilst this assembly has been specifically designed for schools, we have created a parent/carer version which can be used at home.' Ellen added: 'There are lots of things online that children either see that they shouldn't see, or things that they might find frightening, or online challenges. The Click or Quit? assembly can help educate children about online safety. 'I want children to learn that some things they see online are harmful or dangerous, what to do about it and how to ideally stop them seeing it in the long run – but initially if they do come across something to talk to somebody and do something about it. We need to educate children more on what they are seeing online, making sure it is safe and that they talk about if it is not.' Parents and schools can access Click or Quit? resources for free via the 1decision website. https://www.1decision.co.uk/click-or-quit

You can read the article here.... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jun/18/for-jools-one-mothers-fight-for-the-truth-about-her-sons-death ‘I’ve got nothing left to lose’ ... Ellen Roome. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian Ellen Roome suspects her 14-year-old was taking part in a ‘blackout challenge’ when he died. But she can’t access his online accounts – so she has given up everything to take on the social media giants Wed 18 Jun 2025 10.00 BST T he last day of Jools Sweeney’s life, 13 April 2022, was sunny and fun-filled. It was the Easter holidays and Jools, who was 14, had spent the day with a bunch of friends in Cheltenham, where he lived. They played football. They walked through fields to a lake and tried to reach the middle in a small wooden boat. Back home, he and a friend had pizza for dinner, then got the fire pit going and toasted marshmallows. At 8.46pm, his friend left, leaving Jools, an only child, on his own. Their laughter as they said goodbye was recorded on the Ring doorbell. Jools’s mum, Ellen Roome, had been out all day but she had been in constant contact with her son. At 9.56pm she rang him to say she would be back soon – she rang three times but there was no answer. When she arrived home, less than 20 minutes later, with her then-partner, she went straight to Jools’s room, just to say hello, and for a moment, made no sense of what she saw. “I said: ‘What are you doing?’” says Roome. “I remember thinking he was messing around. Then I screamed and screamed.” Roome’s partner, a pilot trained in first aid, rushed upstairs and delivered CPR. The house filled with firefighters, paramedics, police officers, Jools’s dad who lived close by, and Roome’s dad, too. Jools was defibrillated. Eventually, a detective took the family aside and said they needed to stop treatment. “We were told that even if they brought him back, he’d be brain dead,” says Roome. She is still struggling to comprehend it. “ What just happened? You can’t take it in. This made no sense at all. He was a really happy, fun-loving, popular kid … there’d been no sign of mental health issues – nothing.” Her first thought that night was that Jools had acted under the influence. Had he taken drugs earlier? She rang the parents of his friend who insisted no, they hadn’t – which the toxicology report later confirmed. Jools had no drugs or alcohol in his body. “Then I was absolutely paranoid, I thought someone must have done this to him. I thought there must be somebody else in the house,” says Roome. But that night, a detective assured them that a scene of crime investigation showed no sign of an intruder or a struggle. Police believed this was something her son had done to himself. Police took Jools’s phone and iPad, and the next day, they picked up his computer. Nothing was done with them though: Roome was later told that the forensics machine in Gloucester wasn’t working. Just days before Jools’s death, the case of 12-year-old Archie Battersbee had begun to make headlines. Archie had suffered a catastrophic brain injury that was ultimately fatal. His mother had voiced her belief that he had killed himself by accident, while taking part in an online “ blackout” challenge . “I asked police if this could have been the same thing, a blackout challenge. I’ll never forget their answer,” says Roome. “They said: ‘It could be but we can’t prove it.’” (Meanwhile, Jools’s phone, iPad and computer, which could surely have given them a better answer, remained untouched.) “If it had been a murder, I think there would have been more investigation,” says Roome. It felt as if, “the police response was: ‘Well, he’s taken his own life … so let’s move on.’” But how could she? Instead, Roome has spent the last two years searching for the truth, trying to understand something utterly incomprehensible – and this means fighting for the right to see her son’s social media data. The Bereaved Families for Online Safety group, of which Roome is now a member, has campaigned for legislative change through the Online Safety Act and the data (use and access) bill. Under these, technology companies will be required to provide a user’s app history if requested by a coroner. The agonising experience of Molly Russell ’s family showed the need for this. After 14-year-old Molly killed herself, they fought for five years to access her social media, eventually uncovering horrifying content that the coroner believed played a significant part in her death. For Roome, the legislative change is welcome but nowhere near enough. She wants a national system in place whereby a coroner notified of a child’s death immediately applies to Ofcom to send out an order to social media companies to preserve the child’s data. “It should be as standard as a postmortem or a toxicology test,” says Roome. “It will show who they were talking to, what was on their mind, the content they were seeking and the content that was being offered up. A young person’s entire life is on their phone.” At present, there seems to be no system at all. “I’ve become close to so many bereaved parents and we all have such different experiences,” she says. “ Ros Dowey’s son Murray took his own life and within two weeks, Police Scotland had got into his phone, established that he was a victim of sextortion and were tracking the people blackmailing him. Jools’s phone just sat in somebody’s desk. In the case of Mia Janin who was bullied and killed herself at 14, the police lost the phone and the sim card [they were later recovered]. How can it be so different? Shocked, numb parents are saying, ‘What happened to our beautiful child?’ and there’s such a lack of giving a damn.” For the first year after Jools’s death, Roome had none of this fight in her. “I was struggling to even breathe,” she says. “I collapsed into just about existing and I was in denial. Three years down the line, I still expect him to walk in the door sometimes.” Instead, Roome assumed the inquest would deliver all the answers. “I expected to go in and be told: ‘This is what happened and why.’” Instead, they learned nothing. “It was just me, Jools’s dad, my partner at the time, and the coroner – and it was over in half an hour,” says Roome. They were presented with a folder containing statements from various people, including Jools’s friends, none of whom had seen any sign of mental health problems. (His friends believe the blackout challenge is the only answer that makes sense.) “The coroner said: ‘I can’t be certain he was in a suicidal mood,’” says Roome. “So Jools’s death certificate is just a narrative description of how he took his life. We walked out, thinking: ‘Now what?’” Returning to her old life wasn’t possible. Roome ran a finance company. “I remember trying to go back to work – I had staff who were reliant on me – and hearing people complain about the coffee. I thought: ‘I’ve got to get out.’ I decided to sell the business and then look for answers and that’s exactly what I did. I sold it in March 2024. Then I went back to being a fighter.” Her first step was to contact the social media companies to request Jools’s data. “Even contacting them was hard and took a lot of time,” she says. Instagram answered: “With regard to your son’s messages on our services, we are not able to provide private messages without a valid legal order.” “TikTok arranged a Zoom meeting where I was told that they ‘might’ have deleted the data. They didn’t say that they’d looked and they had deleted it, only that they ‘might’ have,” says Roome. “The line they give you is that, without a court order, they’re not releasing anything.” Next, Roome began lobbying and meeting MPs. Her petition to give parents the right to access their child’s social media accounts gained more than 120,000 signatures in nine days and was debated in parliament. At that debate, MP Caroline Voaden described a meeting with senior representatives of all the social media companies and hearing their “pathetic excuses” for not releasing Jools’s data. “They said they would be fined for releasing the data. By whom? Who is going to press charges in their right mind?,” asked Voaden. “It’s a pathetic attempt to avoid the potential bad publicity that will follow if it becomes clear that Jools’s short life ended after taking part in a challenge. It’s about protecting their reputation. I believe it’s about the accountants who fear the lawsuits.” Roome agrees: “Who are they protecting? Surely, they should be saying: ‘Here you are, bereaved parents, I hope you get some answers.’ I believe they’re protecting themselves.”’ The Guardian also contacted Instagram. A spokesperson apologised for the delay in responding to Roome, which it said was the result of an unstaffed email address, something it has now rectified. Instagram has created a new facility that enables parents to request and download their child’s account history, the posts they are engaging with and the accounts they are following. They have offered to help Roome use this. When approached by the Guardian, TikTok declined to give a statement, but did say that it is not the case that it is trying to prevent Roome from obtaining answers. According to TikTok, it is legally required to delete personal data unless, for example, it receives a valid request from law enforcement to preserve it. By 2024, when it was contacted about Jools’s account, it was no longer available. Roome doesn’t believe this. She has Jools’s phone back now, she has worked out his pin and paid £20,000 for a forensic examination. Though she can see Jools’s TikTok account, much of the content is faded out and inaccessible – Roome doesn’t know why – but each inaccessible video has an ID number. She is applying to the high court to request a fresh inquest so that a coroner can apply for Jools’s data. She is also suing TikTok for her son’s alleged wrongful death, alongside three other parents who believe their children died while taking part in an online blackout challenge. One of the children, Isaac Kenevan, 13, had three videos stored on his phone (one with a TikTok logo) showing Isaac making himself pass out, then recovering, laughing. There are other factors related to the way the children died that have led their parents to suspect it was not deliberate. “God forbid anyone heard our conversations: we’ve talked in graphic detail and pieced together similarities,” says Roome. “In the lawsuit, we only need to show a 50% chance that this could have been the result of social media in order to progress … then they’d have to release the data.” According to TikTok, the blackout challenge has been banned from its platform since 2020 and it has found no evidence of it trending. Roome disputes this and says she has been contacted by parents who believe their children have since participated in it, some as recently as this month. For now, this fight is Roome’s life. “I’m haemorrhaging money every month and at some point, I’ll have to get a full-time job,” she says. She also has to leave her house, which she bought with her partner, as they’ve now separated. “I’m not ready to go yet, I’m not ready to pack up Jools’s stuff,” she says. “His room is exactly the same. I washed all the clothes in his laundry basket and put them back in his drawer. I wash his bedsheets now and again, too – even though that feels weird when I know he’s never going to sleep in his bed again.” Twice a year – on the anniversary of Jools’s death and his birthday in July – that room fills up with his friends. “I love it,” she says. “There’s this pile of shoes at the bottom of the stairs. Last year they showed up in cars – they were all learning to drive. I found that particularly hard. This July, Jools would be 18. One of the girls is bringing a lemon drizzle cake because that was his favourite.” There may never be answers. “Since the beginning, I’ve said that we don’t know if social media was involved,” says Roome, “but it’s the only thing we haven’t checked. If I get to the very end of all this, and we’ve checked and we’ve seen and we still don’t know, then maybe I’ll have to accept it.” There’s a pause, and then she adds: “But if we get to the end, and we find that social media did play a part, I will not let them get away with it. I’ve got absolutely nothing left to lose.”

The new Data Bill will not help me as Jools' inquest was closed. I now have NO other option but to apply to the Attorney General to ask permission to apply to the High Court for a fresh inquest so that we can use the Data Bill and see if social media companies haven't deleted Jools' data and IF there are answers as to why my son ended his life.  ​ 27th May 2025 - I have written to the coroner. After Jools ' inquest, I only received the final inquest pack, and Lawyers have told me I should have received other documents. I have asked to obtain records from the coroner.​ Jools' inquest file has been archived, so I'm waiting for that to come back. Ideally, I would like the Coroner to support my application for a fresh inquest.  ​ Once I have this, I have to apply to the Attorney General (AG) for permission to apply to the High Court for a fresh inquest. If agreed upon, the AG will grant a FIAT, which gives me six weeks to apply to the High Court.  ​ Whilst I have crowdfunded some money, I do not have sufficient to pay the £86,000 quoted to me. Therefore, I am going to do this Erin Brockovich style and represent myself as much as possible. I have been offered free help from a solicitor to check over the forms, which is massively appreciated. Then I need to pay for a Barrister to check the forms for the High Court and any court fees, which I don't know how much they are yet. High Court access process for new inquest ​

Matt Sweeney, Jools Sweeney, Ellen Roome Bereaved families who attended the event hosted by The Archewell Foundation in NYC Words borrowed from https://archewell.org/news/unveiling-the-lost-screen-memorial/ The Archewell Foundation unveiled the Lost Screen Memorial in New York City—a deeply moving art installation honoring the lives of children lost to online harm. As part of the No Child Lost to Social Media campaign, led through The Archewell Foundation Parents’ Network, the memorial is a powerful call to action for urgent online safety reform. Prince Harry and Meghan, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, attended a private vigil at the site, standing in solidarity with nearly 50 families from The Parents’ Network whose children were commemorated in the installation. These parents are a powerful representation of the thousands of families who have lost their children to online harm and are transforming their personal loss into meaningful change. The installation features 50 illuminated lightboxes, designed to resemble smartphones, with each displaying the lock screen photo of a child whose life was cut short by digital dangers. These images serve as both a tribute and a stark reminder of the human cost behind online harm.  This tribute builds on over four years of work by the Duke and Duchess and The Archewell Foundation in the digital safety space, reflecting a continued commitment to creating a safer digital world. By engaging with families, amplifying their voices, and championing responsible technology, this work aims to shape a more compassionate, accountable digital environment. The Lost Screen Memorial also serves as a poignant extension of the Duke’s remarks at the 2024 Clinton Global Initiative, where he called for immediate action to protect children online. In his speech, he shared that his own lock screen features a photo of his children—a reminder of what’s at stake for families everywhere. Through this initiative, The Archewell Foundation continues to provide resources, support, and a collective voice for families navigating the complex challenges of parenting in a digital world. Open for 24 hours, the Lock Screen Memorial invites families, advocates, and changemakers to pause, reflect, and honor the lives of children gone far too soon—and to renew our collective commitment to protecting those still here.

Since my debate in Parliament on 13th Jan 2025, I've been waiting for a date with Ministers as promised to discuss my JoolsLaw campaign.  In parliament,  Chris Bryant,  Minister of State for Data Protection and Telecoms, said they would discuss this in the Bill committee. Chris Bryant in Parliament I arrive at the Bill committee to be told it wasn't going to be discussed, but he would ensure a meeting before the report stage Now I have finally been given a date of 15th May for my meeting, but have found out that the report stage is 7th May.  I’m not sure if this is my last chance to raise this.  Max Wilkinson (my MP) suggested that all I could do was ask people to write to their MP to request this amendment on the 7th.  So I have drafted a template email for people to use.   Please email your MP today and ask them to support the Jools’ Law amendment. You can copy this wording: Dear [MP’s Name], I am writing to ask for your support in backing Jools’ Law, a vital amendment to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill that would give bereaved parents timely access to their deceased child’s social media data, particularly when the child has died in sudden, unexplained, or tragic circumstances. Ellen Roome, whose 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney took his own life in April 2022, has been campaigning tirelessly for this change. Minister Chris Bryant stated on record in Parliament that he would arrange a meeting with Ellen before the report stage of the Bill on 7th May. Unfortunately, that meeting now looks unlikely to take place before the deadline. Currently, social media data can only be requested by a Coroner or the police. But in many tragic cases, including Ellen’s, no such request is made—often because authorities are unaware of the urgency, or are too stretched. I understand that social media platforms may delete data after 90 days unless it is specifically preserved, meaning potentially vital evidence can be lost forever. Ellen’s amendment would ensure that: • When a child dies, social media data is automatically preserved and • That data is requested and made available as part of the inquest process. • Parents would be treated as persons of interest, able to access this data to help understand their child’s final days. This is not just about grief; it’s about truth. This data could help identify signs of bullying, grooming, online abuse, or harmful internet challenges—information that may be crucial to the inquest and to a family’s understanding of what happened. Please act now to support this amendment and help stop other families from being left with unanswered questions after unimaginable loss. Kind regards, [Your Full Name] [Your Address and Postcode] Thank you to anyone reading this and trying to help.

On 2nd April 2025, I have finally been offered a meeting to follow up from the debate in parliament. (Extract of email from Parliament below)  ​ "...I am getting in touch from Minister Jones private office. As raised below, discussions have been ongoing with the Home Office (HO) and Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Minister Jones (DSIT), Minister Johnson (HO), Minister Davies-Jones (MoJ) and Minister Bryant (DSIT) would like to meet with you to discuss further. We have held time in the Minsters diaries on Thu 15/05/2025 13:00 - 14:00. The meeting will take place in Westminster..."

I have thought hard about sharing this because the last thing I would ever want is for someone to copy it. I am 100% NOT supporting this in any way. If any kids are reading this, NEVER try this; it’s dangerous. I thought I’d tell you about TikTok's latest challenge!!! Drop things on your feet, challenge. A social media trend where users drop progressively heavier items on their feet. The Tiktok  trend #droppingthingsonmyfoot  has been used on hundreds of videos, leading to a podiatrist warning participants they risk “a lifetime of pain and disability. Lisa Kenevan  (bereaved mum to Isaac and fellow mum in our lawsuit) reported this to TikTok. Only for them to return with no surprise: “No violation” (see photo). How many people and potentially children might try this (don’t do it) and one day hurt themselves or, God forbid, cut a vein in their foot and die? Oh, but oh no, they don’t have harmful challenges on their platform. Ofcom  won’t take individual complaints like this from us. So how is this one going to stop?! Parents, please warn your children not to try this.

𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬…. 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 - 𝐖𝐄 𝐃𝐈𝐃 𝐈𝐓! JoolsLaw, "Give parents/guardians a right to access social media accounts of their children" will be discussed in parliament on 13th Jan 2025. If anyone wants to help Matt and me—we are still ‘Team Sweeney’ (which was the name of our WhatsApp group with Jools)—please ask your MP to attend the debate on Monday, January 13, at 4.30pm in Westminster Hall and support JoolsLaw. Thank you again from the bottom of our very broken hearts for all of the likes and shares that enabled us to get enough signatures in such a short amount of time to achieve this. Without you, we couldn’t accomplish this. We did it!!!I also found this petetion (see photo) in Jools’ school books. I wonder where he got his determination to fight for what he believed was right and fair! I think he still got the detention, but at least he tried. I used to tell him that as long as he tried his ABSOLUTE hardest at X (whatever we were discussing), that’s all I asked for. You have to try your best; you can’t do more than that. #JoolsLaw   #Socialmedia   #childsafety   #onlinesafety

Jools' cake made by his friend Massie It has been a tough few weeks for me, and people keep asking me for updates on my quest to find Jools’ online information. Last Saturday (27th) should have been my son’s 17th birthday; he should have been bounding down the stairs, begging to go out early for his first drive. My house was quiet. All anniversaries, birthdays, important dates and holiday seasons are hard, but I found the run-up to this one particularly hard this year. I spent the day surrounded by Jools’ friends and their parents. They come every anniversary of his death and on his birthdays (one of his friends always makes a cake, and this year was no different), and I adore seeing them, but how they are all young, almost adults now (17-18). Jools was 14 when he took his life. His friends have grown up so much in the last 27 months since he left us. Now driving, etc, and whilst I love seeing them, it is hard to wonder what Jools would be doing or how much taller than me he probably would be now with his future all ahead of him. There were plenty of tears from all, but we did manage to smile occasionally and reminisce about Jools' wonderfully kind, funny, and loving nature. So where am I now with things? After being knocked off my feet for a while, I’m standing back up and ready to proceed. I’ve paid £6800 for the solicitor to review all the information I have gathered about Jools’ online world myself. The forensics company that I initially used at the cost of £1200 isn't suitable for for the High Court, so I have to pay another £3960 to a new forensics company to scrape Jools’ actual physical devices. I feel the police should have done this during the initial inquest. I have knowledge of someone who previously looked at links on his deceased daughter's phone. Then, he was charged with having indecent images on his computer and is now on the sexual offenders register. So I’m staying well clear of this and have no option but pay for the solicitor to trawl this data at an estimated cost of another £6800. Then, I need to pay for a clinical psychologist to write a report for the courts to confirm whether whatever they find could have affected the Jools. No idea what that will cost. Next will be an application to the Attorney General. If they grant what’s known as a FIAT, we can then apply to the High Court with more solicitors and barristers and High Court fee costs to ask them to allow a fresh inquest so that the Coroner will have the right to demand ALL information be released from the social media companies. It’s exhausting and expensive, and I still don't understand why social media companies wouldnt try to help me more. So the fight continues…. and I really, really hate doing this part, but if anyone can help with legal fees, I would be so very grateful; even the price of a coffee from all the people who have offered help would go a long way to help with these ever-mounting fees, here is the link

Ellen wanting saying thank you to everyone