'Never underestimate the power of a bereaved woman': The mother who turned the grief of her son's suicide into a life-saver

On a cloudy Monday morning in August 2013, Ben Fitchett’s parents were beginning to worry when their 14-year-old son hadn’t returned home at his usual time after his paper round. Their repeated calls and texts went unanswered until his phone was eventually picked up.

When a police officer answered Ben’s phone, Sarah and Peter knew it would not be good news. The officer told them that Ben had died after falling from a bridge over the eastbound M62, near to junction 20, on his way to his paper round.

It’s a day that both Sarah and Peter will never be able to forget and one that still holds many questions for them. Just days before his death, Ben had been on a scouting trip for a few weeks in Switzerland. By all accounts, he was happy and had a great holiday with his friends.

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“Ben had just come back from the trip on Sunday evening,” mum Sarah, from Rochdale, recalls to the Manchester Evening News. “He had a great time and was full of the joys of his holiday. He set off on Monday morning to do his paper round and decided to take his own life.”

An inquest into Ben’s death found that his girlfriend had read a Facebook conversation while he was on holiday that suggested he had been involved with another girl. The night before his death, he sent a text to his girlfriend to say he had made the story up for attention. At around 7.15am the next morning, he called her for a final time.

At the inquest, Peter and Sarah said they had noticed nothing unusual about Ben to suggest he had been having such a difficult time. After nearly ten years of reflection, his parents are still no wiser as to what led to Ben’s actions on the