Inquiry told of fears for bridge girl

A MENTAL health expert has told how advice not to move a teenager to an open care home was ignored by senior managers months before the girl apparently threw herself to her death.

Staff working with Georgia Rowe, 14, pleaded with their bosses to keep the troubled girl in a secure unit after fears for her mental health.

But a Fatal Accident Inquiry into her death heard that, despite their concerns, the girl was moved to the Good Shepherd Centre Renfrewshire, near the Erskine Bridge – a well-known suicide spot.

Months later, in October 2009, the teenager and her friend, Neve Lafferty, 15, left the open unit and, in an apparent suicide pact, jumped 100ft to their deaths from the bridge.

Psychologist Kirsty Bremner told the inquiry at Paisley Sheriff Court: "She needed that arena of containment before she moved to an open situation. My advice would have been she needed a longer period of stability in a secure unit. It would have been more a question of months than weeks. There were a lot of unresolved issues."

Ms Bremner said that despite her concerns, senior managers had moved Georgia in August 27, 2009.

The hearing, before Sheriff Ruth Anderson, QC, continues.

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