THE father of a teenage girl who shared photos of his dying daughter after she hung herself over online bullying said she "just wanted to be loved and she wanted to be accepted".
Adrian Derbyshire issued the pictures of daughter Julia on life support in a hospital bed to raise awareness of the abuse she had suffered.
Instead of celebrating her 18th birthday last week, he said, "I ended up putting roses on her grave".
"I wouldn't want any other parent to go through what I am going through at the moment," Derbyshire, from Warrington, Cheshire, added
He started a campaign to offer "support against self harm and suicide" – referred to as "Sassy" – after Julia's death.
He said the bullying started after Julia, then aged 13 and living in the US state of Missouri, spoke to a friend about her sexuality and the friend went on to tell the school.
Julia was abused physically, psychologically and online, he said, and returned to the UK to live with him in the last two years of her life.
He said she developed mental health problems from the bullying and she returned to the websites and the forums where the bullying had taken place.
"She wanted to convince them she was a great person... she just wanted to be loved and she wanted to be accepted."
Derbyshire said he has spoken to more than 200,000 children in the last two years about his experience.
"It was a very difficult decision to take the picture, never mind to release it," he said. "It's been on my phone for the past 16 months just buried in there."
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