A suicide chat group on Instagram involving a dozen girls from the south of England which led to serious self harm has been uncovered by police.
The group, made up of youngsters aged between 12 and 16, came to the attention of officers when three of them went missing.
They had travelled by train to meet London but were then found seriously unwell in a street and taken to hospital by ambulance.
The girls had met online and discussed suicide, according to a police briefing about the investigation, seen by the BBC.
The paper adds that peer-to-peer influence increased suicidal ideation amongst the children involved to the extent that several escalated to suicidal crises and serious self-harm .
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