Hundreds of Britons advertise for suicide partner

Angela Stevens's son Brett killed himself after advertising for a partner

More than 700 people in the UK have posted on a pro-suicide website looking for someone to die with, a BBC investigation has found.

The site, which we are not naming, has a members-only section where users can look for a suicide partner.

We have connected several double suicides to the “partners thread”.

Our investigation also found that predators have used the site to target vulnerable women.

In December 2019, Angela Stevens’ 28-year-old son, Brett, travelled from his home in the Midlands to Scotland to meet a woman he had made contact with on the partners thread.

The pair rented an Airbnb and took their lives together.

“I miss everything about Brett, his smile, his infectious laugh,” Angela says.

Since her son’s death, she has spent years researching the pro-suicide site - in particular, the partners thread.

“It's a very dangerous place,” Angela says.

She compares it to a dark version of a dating app.

“Where else would you go to find a partner to take your own life with?” she says. “It’s just absolutely vile.”

The thread encourages users to end their own lives - and offers instructions on how to do it.

Our analysis found more than 5,000 posts on the thread by people from around the world.

We are not naming the site or giving details about methods of suicide recommended there.

A BBC investigation in March found more than 130 British people may have ended their own lives after using a chemical promoted by the site.

The BBC team set up an anonymous account and analysed the number and content of messages.

Members post their age, sex, location and preferred method of death, in a search for someone to die with them.

Helen Kite’s sister, Linda, advertised for a partner in 2023.

It is a forum which “preys on desperate souls”, says Helen. “The partners section sets them on an inescapable path to death.”

“I am 54F [female], based near London,” Linda wrote. “I can travel and could pay for a hotel, if that suited. Obviously, would be good to chat first.”

Linda contacted a man through the partners thread and met him at a hotel in Romford, East London.

They consumed a toxic chemical and died together on 1 July 2023.

Helen says Linda was found “lying next to the body of a total stranger”.

She believes that, every day, “innocent victims seeking support are snared” by the forum, “unimpeded by the authorities”.

It causes “untold misery and suffering for those left behind,” she says.

But there was worse to come.

In September 2023, Helen’s other sister Sarah - devastated by losing Linda - also went on the forum, ingested the same toxic chemical and died.

Predators

A further, even more disturbing, aspect of the partners thread came to light during our investigation.

Predators appear to be using it to target vulnerable and suicidal people, especially women.

In 2022, a court in Glasgow heard how 31-year-old Craig McInally had responded to a series of posts in the partners thread, placed by young women looking for someone to die with.

He persuaded one of them, a vulnerable 25-year-old woman, to come to his flat and “practise” suicide.

McInally repeatedly choked her to the point where she lost consciousness.

Roberta Barbos was targeted by a predator after she advertised on the partners thread

McInally was arrested at his home where it was found he had offered similar “advice and assistance” to other suicidal young women.

He had met them all on the partners thread.

One of them was 22-year-old Romanian student Roberta Barbos.

In messages seen by the BBC, McInally told Roberta that he had “a hell of a lot of experience” and promised to be with her “the whole way”.

She met McInally once and then refused to see him again - but took her own life alone in February 2020.

“It’s like something from a horror movie, from another world,” said Roberta’s mother, Maria Barbos. “I couldn’t believe that a website like this would even exist. They’re sick minds.”

An Order for Lifelong Restriction (OLR) was imposed on McInally - a sentence reserved in Scotland for the most serious cases of sexual and violent offending, short of murder.

Under its terms he was sentenced to a minimum of two years and three months in prison, and supervision for the rest of his life.

Roberta's mother, Maria: “I couldn’t believe that a website like this would even exist”

In our investigation we found that in the past two years some forum users had even travelled overseas to meet partners.

We know of two cases where men from the US have travelled to the UK to meet and “assist” vulnerable young women in their plans for suicide.

We are not naming any of those involved at the request of their families.

In one case, a man from Minnesota flew into the UK and stayed in a hotel for more than a week with a 21-year-old woman he had met on the thread.

On the 11th day of sharing a hotel room, the young woman ingested a toxic chemical and died.

The man claimed to have been asleep when she took the substance and called the emergency services when he realised what she had done.

He was arrested and questioned by police but was released without charge and permitted to fly home.

In a second case, a man from Florida is believed to have arranged to meet four people he had contacted on the thread - one of them in the UK.

Our investigation found that in one case he gave a woman in the US a gun.

She was located by police before she could carry out her suicide plan.

This man has also admitted flying to London and meeting a young British woman at a hotel.

It is not known who this woman was or what happened to her.

The man has not been charged with any offence.

What can be done?

The previous Conservative government introduced the Online Safety Act in 2023 which it said would allow the regulator, Ofcom, to act against the website.

The new Labour administration says it is committed to the new law and “determined to take action to stop this harm online”.

A spokesperson told us: “We want to get these new protections in place as soon as possible.”

Julie Bentley, the chief executive of Samaritans, says the act will only prevent harm if it has real teeth: “The government and Ofcom have to ensure that small platforms posing a high risk to the public are regulated to the fullest extent of the law.”

• If you are experiencing any of the issues mentioned in this story you can visit BBC Action Line for a list of websites and helplines that can offer direct help at any time.

Ofcom is still consulting on how best to implement the law, and its enforcement powers will not come into effect until the end of this year.

Following our earlier reports it did contact the site’s administrators.

The regulator admits that because the site is small and based in the US, it will be “pretty hard” to take legal action against it.

But during the course of our investigation into the site, we found that one of the principal moderators is a woman based in the west of England.

We are not naming her because of concerns for her mental health.

Ofcom chief executive Melanie Dawes says that threats of enforcement have not yet made a difference.

“We contacted [the site] and actually told them this was illegal, that it was promoting suicide,” she said. “Initially they stopped it being available for UK users, but they’ve gone back on that now.”

Bereaved families say that the partners thread is directly promoting suicide - something that is illegal in the UK whether online or offline.

“I think it's a predator’s dream to have a partner's thread like that,” says Angela Stevens.

“Because it's so open to abuse, that I find it really, really scary.”