Bloody fight led to teenage girls' suicide leap at bridge

The mother of Neve Lafferty spoke of her daughter's descent into despair which ended with her falling to her death from the Erskine Bridge.

Collette Bysouth said that, months before her daughter had died, she had lost her boyfriend to a drugs overdose.

Ms Bysouth was speaking at the first day of a fatal accident inquiry into the death of her 15-year-old daughter and Georgia Rowe, 14, who fell to their deaths from the bridge into the River Clyde in October 2009.

Ms Bysouth said she believed that the root of Neve's problems could be traced to when she witnessed a fight at her father Paul Lafferty's Helensburgh home in 2006, in which he was almost killed. Ms Bysouth said that Neve had been ushered into a bedroom but seen the bloody aftermath of the fight in which her father's attacker, Brian Folan, died. Ms Bysouth said Neve had always been a "daddy's girl" and had been badly affected by witnessing the incident.

She later found a letter under her daughter's mattress, following an incident when Neve had cut her own wrists, which said she had "never gotten over" what had happened to her father.

"I always knew he would die soon but I had to be first," the girl had written.

The inquiry at Paisley Sheriff Court heard that Neve believed her father would "drink himself to death".

Ms Bysouth said that, in the immediate aftermath of the incident, her daughter had seemed to be coping. But she said that when Neve started high school later that year she "saw a huge change in her attitude", which led to the eventual breakdown of the relationship between mother and daughter. Neve began to hang around with an undesirable crowd, drinking alcohol and spending time with the daughter of Mr Folan - a matter that caused concern to the police.

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She was also getting involved in shop lifting and had started self-harming, as well as arguing with her mother and defying any attempts to impose limits on her actions.

Her behaviour led to her eventually being placed in the Good Shepherd Centre secure unit in Bishopton, in 2008, from where she absconded on numerous occasions. She had also started seeing Jonny McKernan, who later died. Ms Bysouth told the inquiry that, after the death of her 16-year-old boyfriend, her daughter had tried to kill herself twice.

She said it was unclear whether Jonny's death, at his home in February 2009, was deliberate or an accident. At the time, Neve was staying at the Good Shepherd Centre but her mother believed that "under the circumstances" she should have been allowed out to spend time with Jonny's mother and sister, with whom who she was apparently "very close".

Ms Bysouth broke down as she told the hearing: "I tried to tell her that we (Ms Bysouth's partner David and their two daughters] would always be there for her.

"But I think she blamed me for her being in care, and for the fact she wasn't with Jonny the night he died. She blamed herself. She thought if she'd been with him that night he would have been alive."

Shortly afterwards, Neve's father, who had been treated in hospital for depression and suicidal thoughts, left Helensburgh to stay with a friend in Copenhagen. With her boyfriend dead and her father gone, Ms Bysouth said, Neve felt as though she "had no-one left".In July of that year, Ms Bysouth said Neve had taken a valium overdose but was treated by a doctor. The following month she cut one of her wrists.

Despite these incidents, her mother said that, in the latter half of the year, Neve had seemed to turn a corner and, though she was still at the Good Shepherd Centre, her relationship with her mother had improved to the point that they were able to go on holiday together.

Describing the hours leading up to Neve's death on 4 October, her mother said she had been lively and in good spirits.

Ms Bysouth described the moment she dropped her daughter off. Ms Bysouth said: "She had a box of chocolates from her granny and was going to watch X Factor. She wheeled the suitcase towards the centre, and that was the last time I saw Neve alive."

The inquiry continues.