Teenager commits suicide over Skype webcam blackmail footage
A teenager has committed suicide after webcam footage of him conversing with who he thought was a teenage girl on Skype was used to blackmail him.
Daniel Perry, 17, engaged the person in video conversation but the girls profile was in fact fake, part of a ploy by scammers to dupe unsuspecting people to compromise themselves online, in the hope of later extracting money from the victim.
This saw Perry threatened with having the footage released to friends and family unless he stumped up, alongside a warning that he would be ‘better off dead’ if he failed to do so.
Less than an hour later Perry chose to jump off the Forth Road Bridge instead.
The incident, which took place on 15 July, came to light in the wake of concern surrounding social networking site Ask.fm which has been linked to the deaths of four other teenagers following instances of bullying.
Perry was himself said to have been the victim of abuse himself on the platform.
Nicola Perry, Daniel’s mother, said of her son: “Knowing him as I do, he has felt embarrassed, horrified and has thought he’s let everybody down.
“… he wasn’t doing anything wrong, just what anyone his age might do, but this scam is all about exploiting young people. Whoever is behind this scam has manipulated the footage. These people are clever and dangerous.”