On Saturday, 13-year-old Lucas committed suicide in the Vosges, France. His parents say he was bullied by students at his college because of his homosexuality.
Lucas, the 13-year-old teenager who committed suicide on Saturday in Golbey (Vosges) and whose parents say he was harassed because of his homosexuality, had expressed “his desire to end his life” in his ” diary, ”said the public prosecutor of Epinal, Frédéric Nahon, on Friday.
His relatives revealed in their hearings the existence of homophobic mockery and insults of which the teenager had said he was the victim of other students at his college in Golbey, he further underlined.
The preliminary investigation opened on Wednesday will endeavor “to verify the direct causal link between these facts and the suicide of the young teenager”, indicated the prosecutor, inviting however to “caution on this last point”.
“The cyber-harassment trail will be checked”
It should also make it possible to “confirm the reality of the acts of harassment, their duration, the exact content of the remarks denounced, and to verify the various measures which have been taken”, he continued. “The cyber-harassment trail will also be checked,” he added.
Harassed because of his homosexuality, Lucas, 13, commits suicide
Regarding the causes of death, “the findings and the autopsy carried out by the forensic institute of Nancy have made it possible to establish the thesis of suicide by hanging”, also indicated the magistrate. The teenager’s mother will be heard by the prosecutor on Monday, accompanied by her lawyer.
According to the family’s lawyer, Me Catherine Faivre, the teenager’s sexual orientation was known to everyone and assumed, “as a 13-year-old boy can assume”. Lucas was educated at Louis-Armand College in Golbey, said the prosecutor, according to whom “there has been no recent investigation for acts of harassment in this college”.
A white step
Lucas’ parents have not yet filed a complaint at this stage, and the family wants the funeral “to take place in the strictest privacy, without the presence of the press”, let Me Faivre know. A white march will be organized “in the coming weeks”, she added.
