Page 21mental health issues. Giving
evidence, Mr Storey said: ‘I
walked through the front
door and I thought Harry was
looking down at his phone
but I quickly realised he
wasn’t. I could not compre-
hend what I was seeing.’
He told the court that he
started to perform CPR on
his son and urged his wife to
ring for help when she
returned home.
‘Harry was a charismatic,
caring boy and sport was a
huge part of his life, playing
rugby, cricket and tennis,’
said Mr Storey.
‘He would talk to anyone
with ease and he had a natu-
ral ability to strike up a con-
versation which I admiredDaily Mail, Wednesday, August 21, 2019
PLANS to equip public toilets in a seaside
town with water jets and alarms to stop
people having sex inside were submit-
ted in ‘error’, a council has claimed.
Designs for new the facilities in Porth-
cawl, Bridgend, featured audible alarms,
movement sensors, sprinklers, a cubicle
timer to deter rough sleeping, and graf-
fiti-resistant walls and floors.
There were also weight-sensitive floors
to ensure only one user could be in a
cubicle at a time, to prevent ‘inappro-
priate sexual activity and vandalism’.
But Porthcawl Town Council said the
plans submitted to Bridgend County Bor-
ough Council had been ‘misinterpreted’
and the security features should not
have been included. It said the new loos
would be of ‘traditional construction’.
‘The town council’s enthusiasm and
intentions have been misinterpreted,’ it
said. ‘The various features listed in the
design statement will not be included.
‘The town council has never had any
intention of installing any floor or other
movement sensors, any restricted time
entry, there will not be water sprays, or
self-opening doors, no weight-sensitive
floor and no dousing equipment as
described in the statement.’
The existing toilets will close in Octo-
ber and the new facilities are expected
to be ready by spring 2020.A DRIVER has won a
two-year battle
against a ‘bullying’
parking company
after being hit with a
£165 fine for a £2
charge he had
already paid to park
his Ford Fiesta.
Shane Hatherall
(right), 48, paid the £2
cost by text, as directed by a parking sign,
for the spot in Clarence House, Newport,
South Wales. The company, Parking Eye,
later wrote to him saying he’d ‘breached
his contract’ and fined him £165. When he
refused to pay, providing proof of his £2
payment, they sent him a legal warning.
Parking Eye later admitted that their
text payment system was down, but still
ordered that he pay the fine.
After a two-year battle, they took Mr
Hatherall to court, but a week before
the case, they said the case was closed.
Mr Hatherall said: ‘I wouldn’t give in
because its unfair. This is how they get
their money, by bullying people.’
Parking Eye declined to comment.Victory for man
‘bullied’ to pay
£165 to park car
Boy aged 13 hanged himself after
finding out from messaging app
that girl he liked had a boyfriend
Tragedy on
Dementia risk of having high
blood pressure in your mid-30s
By Ben Spencer
Medical CorrespondentSports
fan: Harry
Storey, 13A TEENAGER was found
hanged after discovering
that the girl he had a secret
crush on was going out
with another boy, a coroner
heard yesterday.
Harry Storey, 13, told his friends
on text messaging service What-
sapp he was having suicidal
thoughts when he found that the
girl had a boyfriend.
But he then carried on the conversa-
tion as usual and his friends thought
he was joking.
It is believed that the schoolboy lost
consciousness quicker than he had
expected to, and as a result, his death
was unintentional.
Oxford coroner’s court heard yester-
day that Harry’s father, Andrew Sto-
rey, came home from work and found
his son hanged.
The youngster’s devastated
family had regarded him as an ordi-
nary, happy boy with no previousBy Mike BediganHIGH blood pressure in your mid-30s
raises the risk of cognitive decline and
dementia in later life, research suggests.
Experts have long warned that raised
blood pressure can impact on the function-
ing of the brain.
But a new study led by University College
London shows the damage can be done
decades before symptoms appear.
They believe there is a ‘sensitive period’ in
early middle-age – between the ages of 36
and 53 – in which high blood pressure is
particularly damaging to the brain.
The researchers used information from a
group of 500 people all tracked from their
birth in the same week in March 1946.
The participants had their blood pressure
taken throughout their life. Over the past
few years, when aged between 69 and 71,
they underwent scans of their brains. Theresearchers found those who had high or
rising blood pressure between the ages of
36 and 53 showed a decrease in brain vol-
ume by the age of 71.
They also had bigger gaps in the white
matter – the ‘wiring’ that connects the dif-
ferent parts of the brain.
The academics, writing in the Lancet Neu-
rology journal, said these were warnings
signs of cognitive decline and dementia.
High blood pressure – or hypertension –
affects one in three adults, about 17 million
people in Britain.
Because hypertension has no symptoms
until it is too late, only half of people evenknow they are at risk. GPs test blood
pressure as part of the NHS Health Check
programme – known as the ‘mid-life MOT’- which starts at age 40. But the research-
ers said the findings show blood pressure
should be targeted earlier than this.
Lead author Professor Jonathan Schott,
of UCL, said: ‘The findings suggest that
blood pressure even in our 30s could have a
knock-on effect on brain health four dec-
ades later. We found that higher and rising
blood pressure between the ages of 36 and
53 had the strongest associations with
smaller brain volume and increases in white
matter brain lesions in later life. We specu-
late that these changes may, over time,
result in a decline in brain function.’
Dr Carol Routledge, of Alzheimer’s
Research UK, which funded the study, said:
‘High blood pressure in midlife is one of the
strongest lifestyle risk factors for dementia,
and one that is in our control to easily mon-
itor and manage.
‘Research is already suggesting that more
aggressive treatment of high blood pres-
sure in recent years could be improving the
brain health of today’s older generations.
‘We must continue to build on this insight
by detecting and managing high blood
pressure even for those in early midlife.’Passion-killing
public loos go
down the pan
experience of similar cases,
told the court that it was
likely that the boy had not
realised the severity of what
he was doing.
He said: ‘I believe Harry
would not have been aware of
how short the period is when
you lose consciousness when
there is pressure on the
neck – it is anything from as
little as 30 seconds.
‘He was in a position where
he could have put his feet on
the floor. I think he lost con-
sciousness unexpectedly. It
could not have been pre-
dicted or prevented by his
family,’ she said.
The court heard that
Harry’s friends described him
as ‘bubbly’ but had heard him
mention suicide before in a
sarcastic manner. They said
he was he was officially ‘just
close friends’ with the girl and
had carried on the Whatsapp
conversation normally after
the comments.
Pathologist Dr Deirdre
O’Shea confirmed that
Harry’s death was caused by
a lack of oxygen to his brain
due to hanging.
Coroner Darren Salter
recorded a verdict of misad-
venture, saying: ‘Harry did
the action himself and had
made comments about sui-
cide. However, teenagers do
say things of that nature.
‘There is an element of spec-
ulation but it seems to me
that Harry did not intend it to
be fatal – therefore the conclu-
sion is one of misadventure.
Misadventure is similar to an
accident, it is the deliberate
undertaking of a risk that goes
wrong causing death.’
■For confidential support,
call the Samaritans on 116123,
go to a branch or visit http://www.
samaritans.org‘It could not have
been predicted’him for. He seemed to us to
be just a normal teenager but
he did have high expectations
of himself. It came as a com-
plete shock to me.’
Harry was take by ambu-
lance from his home near
Didcot in Oxfordshire to the
John Radcliffe Hospital in
Oxford and remained in the
paediatric intensive care unit
for three days until his death.
The inquest heard that a
programme that the Storey
family had recently watched
together on TV may have
influenced Harry’s actions.
‘We watched a programme
where the female star had
hanged herself but her friends
rescued her. It made us won-
der whether he had a sensa-
tionalised view of what might
happen,’ said Mr Storey.
Detective Sergeant Lou
Heffernan-Glover, who has