A girl of 11 hanged herself after her mother banned her from watching Big Brother, an inquest heard yesterday.
Yasmin Browder was found suspended from a bathroom door hook by her dressing gown belt tied around her neck.
Her mother, Jill Morey, a 38-year-old care worker, tried to save her but she was pronounced dead at hospital.
The inquest was told that Yasmin had been helping her mother decorate their home in Shoreham, West Sussex, in June when an argument broke out. As they began to pack up for the day, Yasmin protested about her mother leaving the decorating equipment in her bedroom.
Miss Morey said: 'Everything was fine until the time when I said to her I was leaving the bucket, wallpaper and stripper in her room until the morning.
'She went totally out of character and started launching things out of her room. I said, "Why are you doing this?". She said, "I don't want it in my room".'
Miss Morey said she went downstairs, leaving Yasmin 'stropping around' before she returned to her mother and said she intended to watch Big Brother.
'I told her she was not going to because she had misbehaved and that she was going to bed,' said Miss
Morey. 'I shut her bedroom door, went downstairs into the lounge to watch Big Brother and I could hear her stropping around upstairs.'
Some time later, Yasmin went downstairs and into the bathroom, leading her mother to believe she was going to have a shower.
But when her father phoned later and she failed to go to the phone or shout out from the bathroom, Miss Morey knocked on the door. When
she received no answer, she went outside and peered through a small window to see Yasmin standing against the bathroom door.
She said: 'I saw her standing against the bathroom door with her eyes open. I thought she was having a strop behind the door and
ignoring me. My boyfriend returned home and launched the lock off the door. Yasmin had her dressing gown on and the belt was around the door and her neck.
'She was obviously unconscious. I was shocked and distressed. I released the belt to put her on the floor, then tried to resuscitate her three times. I was hysterical. I was trying all I could for her.'
Miss Morey's boyfriend, Mark Webb, dialled 999 and Yasmin was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead 40 minutes later.
The inquest at Worthing heard that Miss Morey and her ex-husband, Paul Browder, a 42-year-old printing proprietor, had been separated for six years.
Yasmin, a year seven pupil, had enjoyed a weekend on the beach with her father before her death on the Monday evening. Mr Browder said: 'She was on the up. She was
on cloud nine. She had everything to look forward to, friends, school, holidays. Just everything was positive in her life.'
Detective Constable Tim Hughes, of Sussex Police, said there was no history of bullying at school or any indication of self-harm in either her diary or text messages. West Sussex coroner Roger Stone said: 'This is one of the saddest cases I have had to deal with.'
Recording an open verdict, he said: 'Yasmin got into a strop, as her mum said, and could not watch Big Brother.
'This was some kind of an impulsive gesture which has gone horribly wrong, for Yasmin, her family, and perhaps wrong for our society.'
