By TOM RAWSTORNE

Last updated at 09:46 16 May 2008

On the night before she died, she came into their room, kissed her father

Raymond on the cheek and cheerfully told him: "I love you, Dad."

The following day Hannah's mother Heather went to check on her daughter and found her hanging by a tie from the top rail of her bunk bed.

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From Fresh-faced to suicidal: Hannah Bond pre emo, left, and weeks before her death

She screamed for her husband to come, but try as he might it was too late: there was simply nothing that he could do to save Hannah's life.

In the unending bleakness of the weeks that have followed, the couple have fought to make sense of what happened.

Why on earth did their daughter — a popular, intelligent and attractive girl — do such a thing?

They could find only one clue: Hannah was what is known as an "emo".

Some describe it as a cult or a sect, but in reality the term — derived from

the word "emotional" — encapsulates a trend that is becoming hugely popular

among Britain's schoolchildren.

A trans-Atlantic import, its followers dress in black, favouring tight jeans,

T-shirts, studded belts and sneakers or skater shoes.

Hair is all-important: often dyed black and straightened, it is worn in a long fringe brushed to one side of the face.

Music also plays a critical role.

Emos like guitar-based rock with emotional lyrics.

American bands such as My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte and Blink 182 are particular favourites.

No doubt many adults would ask: "So what?"

On the surface, it all sounds typically teenage — angst-ridden,

over-dramatic and tribal.

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Heartbroken: Ray and Heather Bond said Hannah told them emo was 'just a fashion'

No different, in fact, to the Goth subculture

that first emerged in Britain

during the early 1980s.

There is, though, growing concern

that there is a deeply unhealthy

undertone to the emo movement.

Some time before her death,

Hannah's parents, who live in Kent,

noticed scarring on the inside of her

wrists.

When they questioned her

about it, honest and open as ever, she

told them she'd inflicted the wounds

herself and that it was part of an emo

"initiation ceremony".

Only after her death would they discover

how she had secretly chatted

online to emo followers all over the

world, talking about death and of the

"black parade" — a place where emos

believe they go after they die.

A check of Hannah's home page on

social networking site Bebo revealed

her pseudonym, Living Disaster, and

that she'd decorated it with a picture

of an emo girl with bloody wrists.

Another picture showed a child's

exercise book scrawled with the

words: "Dear Diary, today I give up."

While Hannah's wrist injuries may

have been slight, the issue of selfharm

among adolescents is causing

growing concern in British schools.

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My Chemical Romance made it to No.1 in the UK chart with Welcome To The Black Parade in October 2006 - the 'black parade' is a place where all emos believe they will go when they die

New figures show that the number of

children admitted to hospital due to

injuries inflicted on themselves has

risen by a third in five years.

In 2002/03 there were 11,891 such

admissions; in 2006/07 this had risen

to 15,955.

In both periods, there were

more than three times as many

admissions of girls as of boys.

Crucially, those who self-harm are

more likely to go on to attempt suicide.

While there is a multitude of reasons

for this epidemic (exam-related stress

and bullying to name but two), it is

hardly surprising that the emergence

of a sub-culture that appears to

glamorise self-harm and even suicide

is being regarded with alarm.

Inevitably, criticisms of emo culture

are laughed off by those who consider

themselves to be at the heart of it.

It's just a music thing, they say, and anyone

who takes it further has something

inherently wrong with them.

"If you listen to the lyrics, you will

see there is nothing that promotes

suicide; and even if there was, no

right-minded person would listen to it

and think: 'Now I'm going to kill

myself,' ' a self-confessed emo wrote

last week on a music website following

the inquest into Hannah's death.

"I don't think anyone can say that

there is a link between emo and

suicide — it's just a myth.

"Emo has

become an easy target for ridicule like

this; but the bottom line is emotional

does not mean suicide."

That is true, of course. But as

any parent will tell you,

adolescent children can be

highly irrational.

They are also

easily influenced and may be illequipped

to deal with powerful

emotions that can be magnified by a

sense of "membership" to a sub-group

that revels in self-pity.

It is something that Lorraine

Harrison is all too aware of. She has

three daughters, the youngest of

whom is 11-year-old Levi, a girl who

classes herself as emo.

Recently, Levi asked her mother:

"Just why do people kill themselves?"

"When she asked me that, it made me

shudder," says Lorraine, 46, from

Alston in Cumbria. "I managed to keep

calm and explained to her that people's

minds are very disturbed, and

often they don't really want to die. But

inside I felt sick with worry that Levi is

thinking about such things."

From being the sort of girl who

dressed in pink and played with

Barbie dolls, now Levi will wear only

black.

Her favourite T-shirt is patterned with skulls, and she

spends hours in her room listening

to music by My Chemical Romance.

"Their lyrics seem to be associated

with depression and self-harm, and

I feel shock when I listen to them,"

says her mother.

"Levi seems to

have gone from being a lively girl

who enjoyed having friends around,

to someone who has become quite

introverted."

When the topic of suicide was

raised, Lorraine became so concerned

that she telephoned Levi's

father, David, from whom she

is separated.

"He reminded me that I used to be

a rebel, too," she says. "I was a punk

rocker for a while, and he reassured

me it was probably just a phase

that Levi would grow out of.

"But I don't feel it is like the punk rock

movement. That was about a zest

for living and seeing life from a

different angle. We didn't harp on

miserably about dying."

Efforts to snap Levi out of her

emo torpor have so far met with

little success.

Before Christmas, Lorraine bought her daughter a

wardrobe of brightly-coloured

designer clothes and jeans, but they

have barely been worn.

She has banned Levi from dying

her hair black, but is worried about

clamping down further in case it

causes further rebellion.

Levi insists that her mother is

worrying unnecessarily.

"I think many of the concerns

around emos aren't true," she says.

"To me, emos skateboard a lot,

dress in darker colours and listen to

alternative rock music.

"It's also true

they probably think about feelings

more than other people.

"I do get

teased for being an emo because

some people at school think it's just

about suicide and self-harm.

"But I think you would have to be

depressed already to self-harm —

and I'm not depressed.

"I like going out dressed in emo

clothes because it causes a stir.

There aren't many emos where I

live, so people look at you.

"It makes

you feel individual."

That sense of rebellion and

non-conformity is something that

21-year-old Jennina Taylor-Wells

can relate to.

Now a student at

Oxford Brookes University, she

became an emo at 16.

For her, it was

also about making a statement.

"I was going through an unhappy

period at school," she recalls. "I grew

up in the wealthy area of Cheshunt

in Hertfordshire, and I was surrounded

by spoilt rich kids. I felt

that being an emo gave me a

defined individuality."

Looking back, she acknowledges

that the "cult", as she calls it, was

heavily linked to self-harm and

depression.

Many of her friends

were actually taking prescription

antidepressants.

"In hindsight, I can see that being

involved with such a cult can be

dangerous if you are a vulnerable

personality.

"There is a very dark

side to being an emo, which

is about dressing in black and

listening to music with very deep

lyrics. That could tip a vulnerable

person over the edge."

In recent years, the growing reach

of the internet and social networking

sites such as MySpace, Facebook

and Bebo has meant that the

influences to which teenagers are

exposed are not controlled by mere geography.

While this can have

positive effects, Professor Stephen

Briggs, a clinician in the adolescent

department of the Tavistock Clinic,

says it can also adversely affect the

way teenagers develop.

"With mobile phones, the internet

and Facebook you can create a

virtual world that means you need

never be alone," he says. "It means

that you don't ever have to be out

of sight — and that doesn't allow an

adolescent to experience that sense

of being a bit separate, of finding

one's self.

"It means you don't have a chance

to mature on your own; to know

who you are."

Just what directed Hannah

Bond's behaviour on that tragic

September night last year will

never be known.

At the inquest in Maidstone,

Kent, Vanessa Everett, head

teacher of Mascalls Secondary

School where Hannah was a pupil,

admitted there had been problems

with emos harming themselves.

Everett added she thought

it "probable" that Hannah might

have been influenced by another

emo girl at the same school who

had attempted suicide a year

earlier.

According to a fellow

student, she was a close friend

of Hannah's and one of a large

number of emo pupils.

"The amount of boys and girls who

seem to be into it is incredible," the

teenager told the Mail. "I reckon

there must be 15 to 20 per cent of

pupils who are emos. A boy in my

class has recently got into it and

he's changed completely.

"He used to be normal but now he

harms himself, he's dyed his hair

black and he wears dark clothes and

a really long black coat.

"He's got loads of plasters up his arms and

cuts and marks. I tried to ask him

about them but he ignored me."

It also emerged that in the

months leading up to her death,

Hannah had begun to use the

internet more, secretively surfing

the web on the family's laptop.

Her mother told the

inquest: "About a month

before [Hannah's death]

I noticed that she was

addicted to it [the internet].

"There was a definite change in

her desire to be online."

On the night of her death, Hannah

had spent the evening at a friend's

house — also an emo and one who

had also cut himself, telling his

mother: "We're emos, we all do it."

Hannah had wanted to sleep over

and was upset at having to leave.

When they got home, Mrs Bond

told Hannah to go to bed, adding

that they would discuss the matter

in the morning.

The teenager

turned to her and said: "I feel like

killing myself."

Breaking down in tears, Mrs Bond

told the inquest: "I think I said:

'Don't be so silly — we'll talk about

it in the morning.'"

An hour later, Mrs Bond went into

her daughter's bedroom at the family

home in East Peckham, near

Maidstone, and found Hannah's

lifeless body hanging from the

metal railing of the top bunk.

Returning a verdict of suicide,

Coroner Roger Sykes said: "She

had become an aficionado of the

emo fad and she was a user of the

internet, which enabled her to

contact other emos all over the

world, in particular America.

"But she was a very well-liked girl

who had many friends and was

doing well in school. In her

mother's words, she had 'everything

to live for'.

"The emo overtones concerning

death and associating it with

glamour I find very disturbing. It is

not glamorous; just simply a tragic

loss of such a young life."

The 200 friends and family who

attended Hannah's funeral will no

doubt echo that.

But not everyone

seems to have learned the lesson.

In a tribute book set up at

Hannah's school, one pupil left the

following message: "I hope you

enjoy the black parade."

Naive, misguided or just plain

stupid.

But then, that's always been

the trouble with some teenagers. And the danger of emo.