A chatroom user claims many viewers who watched plasterer Gregory Tomkins hang himself live on Christmas Day also saw the suicide of an electrical engineer a decade earlier on the same PalTalk ‘insults’ forum.
The 39-year-old from Sutton, south London, was found dead after police broke into his home after a call from another concerned chatroom user at 3.36am.
It is the second death of a Briton broadcast live from the ‘insults’ chatroom hosted by US company PalTalk after Kevin Whitrick, 42, from Shropshire was ‘goaded’ into taking his life in 2007.
Tragic: Gregory Tomkins (left), 39, from south London, and Kevin Whitrick (right), 42, from Shropshire live-streamed their suicides on a PalTalk chatroom where people insult one another
Yesterday the chatroom’s administrator known as Throat Punch described how he desperately tried to get UK-based members to call 999.
But he said his attempts were ‘futile’ as others simply watched their internet acquaintance die in front of their eyes.
Throat Punch said: ‘As an admin in the room at the time this tragedy took place, the frustration of not being able to contact police because dialling 101 or 999 from a country outside the UK became immediately apparent.
‘By the time it took me to get a room member from the UK to contact 999, it was way too late.
‘Sitting by watching people ignore requests to call police was truly futile.’
The Times reported many of those who witnessed the death of Gregory had watched Kevin commit suicide in devastatingly similar circumstances ten years earlier.
Pictured: Gregory Tomkins posed a photo of himself online with the words ‘Merry Christmas’ shortly before he live-streamed his death on an internet chatroom where users insult one another.
Tragic: Just days before Gregory took his life, he updated his biography on Facebook to read: ‘JUST DO IT’
Mr Whitrick was told to ‘****ing do it’ and to ‘get on with it’ when he signed onto the chatroom in 2007. A coroner described him as being ‘goaded’ into his death.
Both men were frequent users of the chatroom known as Apple Inc Insults. It is one of 5,000 forums on controversial video social site PalTalk and encourages users to verbally abuse one another.
The software is used by more than 7 million people worldwide has been blasted in the past for helping terrorists to communicate.
In the early hours of Christmas Day, Mr Tomkins, a self-employed plasterer in his 30s from Wallington in Sutton, south London, logged onto the chatroom and hanged himself
A Met Police spokesman said: ‘Police were called at 3.36am on Monday, December 25, to an address in Wallington after concerns were raised for the welfare of an occupant’
Controversial chatroom where users ‘egged on father to kill himself live on webcam’
Paltalk is a New York based video chat service which allows individuals to chat face-to-face either on a desktop computer or their mobile device.
The service, owned by A.V.M. Software, also allows subscribers to video chat with up to 10 people for free and hosts thousands of free chat rooms.
It was founded in 1998 – long before the likes of Facebook – and is popular with the first generation of internet users.
But it has courted controversy with some of its 5,000+ chatrooms dedicated to discussing terrorism.
Pictured: Clifford Lerner is the director of AVM Software who bought PalTalk in 2016
‘PalTalk is routinely used by internationally recognized and designated terrorist groups for communication and recruitment,’ said Evan Kohlmann, a consultant for Flashpoint told CNN in 2012.
Terrorist group leaders have been known to hold open question and answer sessions on PalTalk which are advertised in advance on Al-Qaida web forums, he said.
It is now owned by AVM Software whose CEO is internet mogul Clifford Lerner, a 39-year-old multimillionaire who bought PalTalk in 2016.
The Ivy League Cornell University graduate made his millionaires after abandoning a lucrative Wall Street career to invest in internet start-ups instead.
And the gamble has appeared to pay off for Mr Lerner financially however being the director of a company which has been at the centre of controversy cannot be easy.
In 2007, internet safety charities blasted PalTalk after a 42-year-old man from Telford, Shropshire, took his own life after being goaded by chatroom users.
An inquest heard how one user telling him to ‘****ing do it’ because they believed he was ‘play acting’.
He was logged on with around 50 other users to a special ‘insult’ chatroom where people ‘have a go at each other’ and initially the members did not believe he would go through with it.
One anonymous user said at the time: ‘He tied a rope around an uncovered ceiling joist and stood on the chair as he tied the rope around his neck.
‘Some of us chatroom users, talking to Kevin over text chat, microphones and video tried to convince him to step down, but others egged him on telling him to get on with it.
‘We just couldn’t believe he was doing it – it was surreal.
Mr Whitrick was divorced and left behind two children.
MailOnline has contacted PalTalk for comment.
Online contacts described Gregory, a regular to the site, as a ‘lovely soul’, but said the internet chatroom where you got to get insulted was ‘not the place for him’.
He is thought to have joined the chatroom in the early hours of Christmas Day but instead of speaking, as he usually did, he was silent.
A person who wished to remain unnamed said Gregory slowly panned away from the camera and within seconds, he had hung himself.
They said: ‘He had come into the room on his regular screenname that he uses.
‘When he actually comes in the room he is always on the microphone and he talks.
‘But this time he didn’t talk and he was just sitting there. After he left the room he cammed up, and that was when he did what he did.
‘It took him literally 30 seconds to go from sitting down to hanging.’
One person known on the forum as Putin wrote: ‘Gregory Tomkins was a funny man, he did a lot of funny stuff in the chat room but he also got upset a lot and would do silly things on his cam as well.
‘I just think he was very lonely as he had a difficult past which he spoke about a lot.
‘But he always meant well, you just were never sure what mood he was in when he entered the chat room. I do not think an insult chat room like this was the place for him.’
Another chatroom called Alinity wrote: ‘Yakka was a funny guy he will be sadly missed.’
MailOnline has contacted PalTalk for comment.
A Met Police said Mr Tomkins death was not be treated as suspicious and his elderly parents have been informed of the incident.
The spokesman said: ‘Police were called at 3.36am on Monday, December 25, to an address in Clarendon Road, Wallington, after concerns were raised for the welfare of an occupant.
‘Officers attended. A man, believed to be in his 30s, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene.
‘Next of kin are aware. The death is not being treated as suspicious.
‘A file will be prepared for the coroner.’
Residents in the quiet surburban street in south London said he had had run-ins with the police.
Next-door neighbour Janine Harmer, 38, said she heard banging from Mr Tomkins top-floor flat around 3.30 am on Christmas Day.
Ms. Harmer said: ‘There was a lot of banging. I did not know what was going on. It went on for a few minutes.
‘The bedroom is at the back.Its really bonkers. I sad to my boyfriend, ‘Is somebody building an ark in there?’
‘He used to play his music really loud at all hours. Sunday at 8am, late into the night. It was dancey, garage music.
One local who had lived in the street for eight years said Mr Tomkins was ‘a bit of a loose canon’.
He said: ‘I think he had some dealings with the police. Occasionally they would be here. He would shout out the window at people passing by. He maybe had some mental issues.
‘No one knew.much about him. It’s really sad.’
On Thursday afternoon, Mr Tomkins white Mercedes work van was still parked outside the three-storey converted house.
Neighbours reported seeing him drive home the vehicle day around 5.45pm.
One resident which lives in the flat below said ‘I did not see him very much’.
The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: ‘He lived alone here for a long time. He was a very private person.’
- For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details