'The harrowing secret that made me sit on the railings of a motorway bridge'

Bradley Robinson stared out over the vast sea of cars, vehicles stretching back as far as the eye could see.

The teenager wasn’t sure how long he’d been on the motorway bridge for. But he knew all traffic had been held below, meaning it was only a matter of time before the police showed up.

Bradley was sitting on the wrong side of the railings when he heard a voice cry out over the rumble of idling engines.

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"Please, don’t do this,” a stranger said from behind. A couple had stopped their car in the middle of the road wouldn’t leave until the 18-year-old got down.

They eventually managed to coax Bradley away from the railings and he was taken to the safety of his home.

The teenager never intended to take his own life. It was simply a cry for help – one born from a harrowing memory he’d kept secret for 20 years.

“I wasn’t very well,” the railway engineer told the Manchester Evening News. “My head was gone. My family didn’t know what was up with me. I did; I was just scared.”

Bradley, from Failsworth, Oldham was taken to hospital and later sectioned following the incident on the bridge.

The teen would spend the next decade struggling with poor mental health until he revealed what he had been hiding. Bradley was sexually abused when he was a child.

The now 27-year-old kept his trauma locked away for years until he finally opened up to his loved ones this August.

Bradley can recall the instant relief he felt upon speaking to his family. “I opened up and I felt freed from everything,” he said.

“It feels like it’s brought me closer to my family and it’s brought me