Scotland Yard will return the lost sim card and phone of a bullied schoolgirl who killed herself, after the items were found months after her family requested their return.
Mia Janin, a 14-year-old pupil at Jewish free school (JFS) in Kenton, north-west London, died on 12 March 2021. Police admitted losing evidence it had gathered following her death last year – including the teenager’s main phone, second phone and sim card – but have since recovered them.
A Metropolitan police statement said: “As part of our investigation, we examined a number of items belonging to Mia, including a sim card from her main phone and a second handset.
“Last year, when her family requested the items be returned, we were unable to locate them within the property store. However, they have since been recovered and we have spoken to representatives for the family this week to arrange return of the items.”
Mia was found dead at her family home in Barnet and an inquest was told she had been bullied by other JFS students. Barnet coroner’s court heard that one of her TikTok posts had been shared to a Snapchat group run by pupils, some of whom made fun of her.
Mia’s father, Mariano Janin, told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme that the government’s calls to ban children from having phones in schools in England was “not the way”, adding: “We need to learn to live with this technology.”
He said: “I didn’t know about this online world. They say that she was bullied, we found a screenshot saying that she was prepared to be badly bullied, naming the kids that were bullying her.”
He claimed JFS “organised an assembly” and “asked kids to delete the messages”.
He added: “My common sense says that if you have a police investigation and you have this potential group, you should notify the police – maybe this group of kids, they have information on their phone, but that’s what they did.”
Discussing the government’s plan to prohibit children from using phones in schools in England, Janin said: “[They] will have a phone anyway, it’s like this, they will hide the phone, and it’s not the way – they need to learn to use their phones in a responsible way.”
Social media platforms needed to show “some kind of responsibility as well”, he said. He also praised the online safety bill passed in October last year, which aims to protect people from harmful content.
Mia was last seen alive at about 10pm on 11 March 2021, when she said goodnight to her parents at their family home, the inquest into her death heard.
They found her dead at about 6.50am the next day, and two undated letters in Mia’s handwriting were found on her bed addressed to “her loving family and friends”, which “explained that Mia decided to end her life”.
Kuenssberg said: “[Mia’s] school, the Jewish free school in London, said all the information they had was handed to the police and said the coroner’s report wasn’t a reflection of how things are at the school today.”
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In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
