COURTNEY Lee leaned in for a goodnight kiss before her 14-year-old Ollie headed upstairs to bed.
Just a few hours later, as she did every night, the devoted mum went to check on her daughter, but her heart sank when she saw the bed was empty.

Courtney Lee reveals how the system failed to stop her daughter’s torment who was bullied at school before tragedy struck Credit: Glen Minikin

Ollie, aged 12, playing with a toy monkey Credit: Glen Minikin
Frantically searching the room, Courtney opened the built-in wardrobe door and let out a guttural scream.
“Ollie was pale and lifeless,” says Courtney. “Any first aid I once knew escaped me and all I could do was cry and scream and hold her close.”
Ollie was rushed to hospital by ambulance, but doctors were unable to save her.
Her death on October 6, 2024 came after three years of relentless bullying at Barnsley Academy in South Yorkshire.

Born Willow, Ollie began exploring her gender identity at age 13. Though she still identified as a girl, she asked loved ones to call her Ollie – only to be targeted by classmates with a barrage of bullying and cruelty via social media.
The abuse drove Ollie to self-harm and to two previous suicide attempts.
Courtney says: “She was struggling so much with the weight of the bullies who came at her from every direction, from all years and all groups, boys and girls.
“She would be poked, prodded and laughed at. She was called pointless, weird and a scruff and told she didn’t deserve to live.

“She would come home with her hair pulled and red marks on her face and had her glasses crushed by a boy with his bike.”
Courtney repeatedly raised concerns with the school, but says she never felt they were taken seriously.

“Things were being put in place, but not enough,” she says. “She was told she could go to a room to take time out, but the bullies found her so it was not a safe space.
“Sanctions were given to some kids, but others were picking up the mantle.”
The attacks continued and during one horrific incident, Ollie was dragged across the grass in school by a group of girls and told to take an overdose. She was also slapped, pushed and punched in corridors and subjected to homophobic abuse, for being gay.
In Year 8, Ollie told a member of staff it might be better if she was not part of this world.
The school could have introduced a Safety Support Plan – a robust document designed to protect vulnerable students – but it was never invoked, even as the situation worsened.
At the beginning of Year 9, in October 2023, there were two incidents where Ollie slashed herself in class within a week, once with a broken pencil sharpener and once with scissors.

Ollie having fun as a ten-year-old Credit: © Glen Minikin

Ollie at 13, out on a shopping day with Courtney Credit: © Glen Minikin

Ollie was seen by doctors in A&E where she was referred to CAMHS (Children and Mental Health Services), a local support service called Early Help and the school counsellor.
But Courtney says the responsibility always seemed to fall on Ollie rather than those tormenting her.
She recalls: “Ollie was the one who was being told to get changed for PE in a disabled toilet or eat her lunch elsewhere. It should be the bullies being removed, not the victim.”
The bullying continued beyond the school gates, with cruel messages sent on social media and gaming sites.
“They would tell her she should never have been born and that I should have had an abortion and that she didn’t deserve to live,” Courtney says. “She’d lost her spark. It was crushing to see her light go out.”
Ollie later confided in her counsellor that she didn’t feel safe. During a session the following week, she admitted she had tried to take her own life. A second suicide attempt followed a month later.
“We were so distraught that we just didn’t want her to go back to school,” says Courtney.
“I was working frantically to move her – but we were refused by another school because they were full. I tried homeschooling. I really wanted to keep her away to protect her.”

Grieving Courtney reveals her desperate pleas for help were ignored Credit: © Glen Minikin

Courtney’s nightmare did not end with her daughter’s death as trolls continued targeting Ollie on social media Credit: © Glen Minikin

But in February 2024, Courtney received a Notice of Intent to Issue a Penalty Notice from Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council’s Education Welfare Service warning that prosecution proceedings could begin if Ollie did not return to school.
Courtney says: “I was scared of sending Ollie back but I was also scared because the letter said I could face jail if I didn’t cooperate. This letter terrified me.”
Reluctantly, she agreed for Ollie to return on a reduced timetable with quieter breaktimes, and for a while things appeared to improve.
But six weeks later, when she returned to full-time lessons, Ollie told the school counsellor she felt suicidal. Courtney says this was never shared with her by CAMHS or other services.

Mum Courtney is now pregnant again and is due next month Credit: © Glen Minikin

She believes her pregnancy is a gift from Ollie Credit: © Glen Minikin
CAMHS later closed Ollie’s case in March 2024 saying she was now “low risk”
“I was absolutely fuming because she was obviously still struggling and still self harming,” explains Courtney. “She’d only just gone back to school and I was worried about her mental health and felt she needed some kind of diagnosis.”
That summer, Courtney says Ollie had “one of the best summers ever” as they went on adventures – riding on zip wires, playing laser tag and visiting games arcades.
“She seemed happy and carefree without school,” Courtney says.

“Then when Ollie returned to school in September she was doing well. I was surprised but I knew we weren’t out of the woods. I still checked her devices and locked away sharp objects.
“I would check her room for anything concerning, once finding a pair of scissors she’d sneaked out from school, and would monitor her moods.  She seemed fine. I was hopeful things were going in the right direction.”
But that hope was short-lived as during a school trip later that month, Ollie was pelted with plastic bottles by classmates and afterwards refused to return to school.
The following weekend, she took her own life. In a heartbreaking suicide note addressed to Courtney and her stepdad Josh, signed Ollie, she wrote: “Mum, Dad, I’m sorry I couldn’t be the grown up girl that you wanted me to be. Everyone will be better off without me. I love you both, I’m sorry.”
But Courtney’s nightmare did not end with her daughter’s death as trolls continued targeting Ollie on social media.
One wrote: “If she wasn’t weird she would still be here but for me she was just an unnecessary person and was not needed good riddance” (sic).
Another posted: “how is willow doing then? Rotting? Smelling?”
In September 2025 they also created fake TikTok accounts in Willow’s name, with one post reading: “I know my mum is faking my death for clout but I just can’t prove it.”
Courtney says: “I was suffering untold grief and this made me snap. I reported it straight away to the police because I was incredibly angry that the bullying was continuing.”
Two teenagers later received Youth Conditional Cautions for their actions which police confirmed were related to a report of harassment without violence.

Courtney says: “They are not going to have any respect for somebody they are bullying in life if they can’t even feel remorse after her death. It sickens me that this was how savage they are.”
The day following Ollie’s death Courtney also discovered that on the night Ollie died, she had accessed suicide content on YouTube and had been using a website, [teenchat.org], that had been infiltrated by predators encouraging suicide.
“No child should be able to find suicide or harmful content or be subjected to online bullying or predatory behaviour,” Courtney says.
In May this year, 18 months after Ollie’s death, Coroner Hannah Berry, sitting at Sheffield Medico-Legal Centre, said she was “concerned” about Barnsley Academy’s risk assessment process.
After the inquest a spokesperson for the academy, United Learning Trust, said that it would “reflect on the findings” to identify learnings for the future.
They added: “When something like this occurs it is essential that we consider whether there are additional steps we can take now that would help prevent something similar happening in the future”.
Determined that Ollie’s death should not be in vain, Courtney has channelled her grief into campaigning for change.
She has written a manifesto for schools on preventing bullying and launched a petition calling for reforms.
It urges schools, local councils, CAMHS and safeguarding services to monitor children at risk from severe bullying more closely and to share information more effectively.
Courtney has since met a new partner, cleaner Tommy Hartley, 23, and the couple are expecting a baby next month – a child she believes is a gift from Ollie.

“I never thought I would be able to have another child because I have endometriosis,” she says. “I believe this is Ollie’s doing – sending me happiness.
“Ollie was such a vibrant, imaginative, creative girl with emotional depth and dreams of becoming an author and the bullies took that away from her. Not only that, the school didn’t do enough to protect her. Each day was like sending her into a lions’ den.
“Losing a child is a pain that is with you constantly, but I will continue to push for change so that my new baby will never face what Ollie did. No child should die at the hands of bullies.”

Read Courtney’s petition for change here
This is a Facebook page Courtney has set up which outlines Ollie’s Law