‘My 13-year-old daughter downloaded TikTok and six months later she was dead’
by Lydia Patrick
Dec 02, 2023
4 minutes
“Daddy, may I download TikTok?” Maia politely asked her father, five months after she had turned 13.
Liam Walsh double-checked the legal age for the app and said he trusted his mature child to be able to use it responsibly. Like other teenagers, Maia refused to listen to her parents’ calls to get off her phone as she spent hours lost in the virtual world.
But six months later, at 3.15am on 7 October, Mr Walsh received a phone call that will haunt him forever.
“Maia is dead,” her mother screamed. His little girl had taken her own life three weeks before her 14th birthday.
The father doted on the daughter he described as an ordinary, cheerful 13-year-old
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