Publicly committing suicide is not a new or uncommon thing. Broadcasting one’s own death via a webcam is simply an updated version of an age-old tragedy, according to Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of the mental health charity Sane.

“It is more modern than throwing yourself out of a window or on to a train track, but it is the same in terms of the desire for an audience,” she said. “There are easier ways of taking your own life quietly, but suicide is a statement: it is you saying that life has treated you intolerably.”

Some suicidal people sought an audience — via the internet or live — because they did not want to die alone and unseen, she said. “The loneliness of taking their own lives is what people fear the most — it can be the final deterrent. The idea of an audience is that you are not so alone in your final act. One has sympathy for that.”

But such behaviour was not without consequence. “The impact on those watching can be very distressing. It gives some insight into their extreme desperation that these people can’t see the effect on others.”

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