A sexually abused 13-year-old was “highly distressed” before she fell to her death from a fourth floor window, an inquest was told today.
Chevonea Kendall-Bryan was begging a teenage boy to delete a tape of her being abused when she plunged 60ft from her bedroom window in Battersea.
Today a coroner ruled that Chevonea slipped to her death in a “ghastly accident” and did not intend to kill herself.
Bernard Richmond QC told Westminster coroner’s court that he believed Chevonea was leaning out of the window to convince the boy, known as E6, that she would jump if he did not erase the mobile phone footage but that she never intended to follow the threat through.
Following five days of evidence, Mr Richmond said: “Chevonea climbed onto the window ledge and attempted to show him that she intended to jump if he did not do as she asked.
“She either jumped or lost her balance.”
He added he believed that she “had no intention to kill herself” and that her death in March 2011, was instead a “ghastly accident”.
Chevonea’s mother Amanda Kendell, who was crying as the narrative verdict was delivered, was comforted by relatives.
The hearing was told that Chevonea had been bullied mercilessly by fellow pupils at St Cecilia’s School in Wandsworth, south London, before her death.
She self-harmed, cut herself with scissors in class and on one occasion was said to have swallowed a handful of paracetamol tablets.
Mr Richmond identified a “catalogue of failures” by the school and children’s services at Wandsworth Council to help the teenager but he added her case appeared to have “slipped through the net” and was not the result of “systemic failings”.
Chevonea was bullied by classmates from the age of 11, and the abuse became worse after she accused a boy, known as TG, of raping her at a party in February 2011.
E6 then allegedly threatened to throw a brick through her window if she did not engage in oral sex with him. Days later she did so and the act was taped.
The schoolgirl apparently only became aware of the tape hours before her death and Mr Richmond told the court she had made several phone calls and sent text messages to E6, who she believed had the recording, begging him to delete it.
Mr Richmond said: “The issue of the video was weighing on her mind.
“From a text she sent it was clear she believed he had the video which she begged him to delete.
“It was plain she was highly distressed.”
Chevonea died of multiple injuries and suffered cardiac arrest after the fall following severe injuries to the brain.
