The heartbroken father of a bullied pupil who hanged himself in the school toilets has revealed how the teenager’s sister was the first person to find his lifeless body.
Bradley John, 14, died two weeks ago after going missing from lessons at St John Lloyd Roman Catholic School in Llanelli, South Wales.
His sister Danielle, 12, headed straight to the toilets after hearing that he had failed to attend a class, as the youngster would regularly seek solace there from bullies.
Her father Byron John told This Morning how Danielle could hear her brother’s phone ringing on the other side of the door as the family made frantic calls to find him.
Bradley John (pictured) died two weeks ago after going missing from lessons at St John Lloyd Roman Catholic School in Llanelli, South Wales
Mr John, appearing alongside Bradley’s stepmother Kate, said his son had been missing for an hour and 10 minutes before the alarm was finally raised.
‘Danielle knew straight away where he’d be because that was where he’d go,’ Mr John told co-hosts Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby.
‘The worst thing about it was she heard his phone on the other side of the door as his phone was in his bag.
‘She called two members of staff who unlocked the door from the outside but they wouldn’t go in. She was frantic.
‘The paramedics were incredible because the chances are he’d been there for an hour and they still tried to save him, they tried for an hour and a half.
‘But the minute I saw him, I knew we’d lost him.’
His sister Danielle (pictured middle) headed straight to the toilets after hearing that he had failed to attend a class, as the youngster would regularly seek solace there from bullies
Mr John (pictured with his son) will hand in a formal letter of complaint to the school tomorrow demanding that head Ashley Howells resigns
Bradley, who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) when he was six, was being treated for the condition in the weeks before his death.
Mr John revealed how his son’s condition made him a ‘target’ for bullies, and he had ‘broken down’ before Easter.
‘He was not ordinary’, he said. ‘He dared to be different. He had an X-Box but spent very little time on it. It was the outdoors he loved, his horses and quad bike.
‘His ADHD would cause him to get frustrated. It would cause him to have the occasional meltdown. It made him sensitive and he took things to heart.
‘He was boisterous but I think the ADHD was part of his fabric. He wanted everyone to love him and I think when people were nasty to him he didn’t understand that.
‘Children with ADHD are reactive and I think the bullies, if you give the reaction, that makes you a magnet.’
Bradley’s 12-year-old sister Danielle found him dead in the toilet block at St John Lloyd Roman Catholic School in Llanelli, South Wales (pictured)
Mr John, 53, had previously stated his intention to hand in a formal letter of complaint to the school demanding that head Ashley Howells resigns.
He criticised the school’s anti-bullying policy and statements made after Bradley’s death, in which it claimed that ‘support was in place for Danielle’.
He said: ‘That is an untruth, they have not even picked up the phone to ask how she is.’
Mr John, Master of the Carmarthenshire Hunt until fox hunting was banned in the UK, described Bradley as ‘the centre of our world’.
He is trying support his daughter Danielle who is ‘going through hell’ after finding Bradley dead.
A spokesperson for Carmarthenshire Council said a formal investigation underway and that support would be offered ‘in every way possible’.
Mr John, Master of the Carmarthenshire Hunt until fox hunting was banned in the UK, described Bradley as ‘the centre of our world’