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A tragic teenager killed herself after being relentlessly bullied by online trolls, her devastated father claimed.

Hannah Smith, 14, was subjected to dozens of sickening messages on the popular Ask.fm website - with some telling her to “go and die”.

The schoolgirl was upset that severe eczema she suffered as a young child had returned and went online for support.

But instead anonymous users on the site - popular with millions of young British teens - bombarded her with abuse.

Hannah was found hanged by her 16-year-old sister in her bedroom at their family home in Lutterworth, Leics, last Friday.

Detectives are investigating her tragic death and took away her laptop and mobile phone at the weekend.

Her distraught father, David Smith, 45, said Ask.fm is to blame for his daughter’s death and is calling for the site to be shut down.

Writing on Facebook last Friday, he said: "just to let all my friends know my youngest daughter took her own life last night.

"rest in peace my baby and you will never be forgotten xxxxxxx"

The following day, he added: "thank you to those who have said sorry for your loss, thank you for the flowers ouitside (sic) my house, thank you for cards put through my door, thank you for following my posts.

"my heart is broken in 2 and is gonna take along time to repair i just hope that none of you have to go through the pain im goin (sic) through rite now and love u all."

(Image: Facebook)

Dave also posted a picture of flowers outside the family home and a mantelpiece of condolence cards next to the comment: "the new pics for ask.fm."

Ask.fm is a three-year-old Q&A app that has almost 60 million users worldwide - half of them under 18 - and is adding members at a rate of 200,000 a day.

Based in Latvia, it allows users to create profiles so that anyone - not just members - can ask them questions or post messages.

But because the majority of ‘questions’ are asked by anonymous users, there is no comeback for online trolls.

The website has been linked to a string of teen suicides both in the US and Europe in recent months.

Like many teens, Hannah - who was preparing to start her GCSEs - used Ask.fm to air her problems, which included self-harming.

A month before her death Hannah was bombarded with abuse after talking about her self-harming on Ask.fm.

Among the comments posted anonymously were “u ugly f**k go die evry1 wuld be happy”, “go comit suicide” and “do us all a favour n kill ur self”.

Others said “go die”, “go cut ur self n die”, “go die u pathetic emo” and “Die due die due die due”.

Hannah’s devastated friends went onto social networking sites following her death to express their anger at the trolls.

One Twitter user, @pennymaexx, wrote: “Bullies actually make my skin crawl!! rip hannah smith x”

Another pal tweeted: “Absolutely lost for words as to what I woke up to this morning. RIP Hannah Smith. Noone deserves to die that young.”

And @Swagger_jagger1 posted: “If you know someone is being bullied tell someone responsible.

"A 14-year-old called Hannah Smith committed suicide yesterday. She was bullied.”