Ellen Roome, whose son ‘Jools’, 14, died in unclear circumstances in 2022, has campaigned for years for a change in the law to automatically preserve a child’s data after their death
A mum who has had to battle tech firms to try to get answers about her son’s death has said she cried down the phone to a minister when she was told the law will be changed.
Ellen Roome, whose son Julian “Jools” Sweeney, 14, died in unclear circumstances in 2022, has campaigned for years for a change in the law to automatically preserve a child’s data after their death.
In a victory for her campaign, ministers today announced an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to force social media firms to preserve the data.
Ms Roome, who believes her son may have died after an online challenge went wrong, said Technology Secretary Liz Kendall personally phoned her last week to tell her the news. She said she was in the US at the time, with the call coming at 04:15am.
The bereaved mum told BBC Breakfast: “It was 04:15 in the morning in America… I answered the phone and she went: ‘Oh hello, it’s Liz’… I was quite shocked. I said, really? And then I think I just burst tears and went, I’m sorry. I can’t hold it together. I did just cry down the phone to her.”
READ MORE: Mum suing TikTok over death of child gives parents chilling warning
Speaking about the campaign win, she continued: “I did it. I have fought so hard. I wanted to make something positive out of the loss of Jools’s life and, yeah, it’s happening. This law, unfortunately, won’t help me, but it will help other parents. I never wanted another parent to ever be in my position and be begging for answers because I still don’t know what happened to Jools.”
Ms Roome added: “I’m just a mum that just stood up and said: ‘This is wrong.’” She said the years fighting for change have been “emotionally hard”, adding: “Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I just started crying because Jools would be so proud. And I’m not doing it for proudness or some sort of gratification. I just was so determined – I don’t want anybody to feel the pain that I’ve felt.”
She said her next mission is to find out what happened to Jools. Her son was found unconscious in his bedroom in April 2022. An inquest into his death later found he took his own life. The coroner said it was unlikely he intended to do so but that the precise details were unclear.
Ms Roome is trying to get an inquest into his death redone in an attempt to get data from social media firms, as well as trying to get access to a forensic download of phone data that is thought to be held by police. TikTok has insisted it can no longer access the watch or search history from Jools’s social media account as it is required to delete people’s personal data under the law.
Cabinet minister Ms Kendall said: “I recently met Ellen and other bereaved families and no parent ever wants to go through what she has been through. So I was determined, as was the Prime Minister, to take immediate action so that that data is automatically preserved, so that people can look into the impact that social media might have had on the death of a child.”
Ms Roome is suing TikTok with other British families whose children died in similar circumstances. The lawsuit, which was filed last year, claims that Jools, Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Maia Walsh, 13, and Noah Gibson, 11, died while attempting the so-called “blackout challenge”.
The viral challenge encourages people to choke themselves until they pass out. TikTok – which is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance – says the challenge has been blocked on its site since 2020.
With regards to the lawsuit, a TikTok spokesman last month told The Mirror: “Our deepest sympathies remain with these families. We strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behaviour.
“Using robust detection systems and dedicated enforcement teams to proactively identify and remove this content, we remove 99% that’s found to break these rules before it is reported to us. As a company, we comply with the UK’s strict data protection laws.”