Many TDs refused to take online bullying “seriously” even after a teenager’s suicide, a bereaved mother has said. 

Tonight, the documentary Jackie & Coco will air on RTÉ One, which explores the death of Nicole ‘Coco’ Fox Fenton following an onslaught of vicious online bullying. 

Despite the immense weight of her grief, Nicole’s mother, Jackie Fox, realised she had to do something to help others and threw herself into campaigning. 

“It was just something that I felt I needed to do,” she told The Pat Kenny Show. 

“I have two boys at home and Nicole was my only little girl. 

“She was my shadow, she was like sticking plaster to me, all the years growing up. 

“She was my best friend, she was funny, she was beautiful, she was outgoing, she was a great personality.”

Nicole, daughter of Jackie Fox. 22/01/2024. Image: Jackie Fox.

Growing up, Ms Fox remembers her daughter was an “ordinary, happy, bubbly child” and loved belting out a few tunes. 

It was only when she hit 18 that Nicole’s life changed for the worse. 

“She started to go out to a nightclub,” she said. 

“There was one particular girl, she was just so jealous of Nicole and she couldn’t pick on Nicole on her own because it’s so much easier to pick on someone if you have a group behind you. 

“She gathered a group against Nicole, this group started to physically abuse Nicole in the nightclub. 

“They pulled her down a flight of metal stairs, they pushed her so hard into the corner of the table they dislocated her hip.” 

Nicole, daughter of Jackie Fox. 22/01/2024. Image: Jackie Fox.

The family went to the Guards but, in the end, Nicole felt she simply could not report the abuse she had been subjected too. 

“Nicole stood in front of the Guards and then turned around to me and she said, ‘Mam, I can’t make a statement against these people, look what they’re doing to me now. If the Guards go to their house, the next time they see me, they’ll kill me,’” Ms Fox said. 

“She was terrified to make a statement for the physical abuse because of what they would have done to her.” 

The abuse was also online and the bullies began to send her violent videos about death and suicide. 

It was “constant”, Ms Fox said, but at the time none of this was illegal. 

“There was no legislation at all in Ireland to defend someone from being annihilated and tortured online,” Ms Fox said. 

“It was actually the online abuse was worse than the physical abuse because that really got into Nicole’s head. 

“It just got deeper and deeper and deeper.” 

In January 2018, Nicole took her own life; the bullying had continued into the New Year and Ms Fox thinks her daughter “couldn’t find a way to stay”. 

Legislation

Desperate to prevent other families from going through the same tragedy, Ms Fox approached a number of TDs about online bullying but they just “didn’t take it seriously at all”. 

The game-changer was meeting former Labour leader Brendan Howlin who “took me under his wing”. 

The result is Coco’s Law, which banned for the first time the sharing of intimate images without a person’s consent. 

The bill was signed into law by the President in 2020 and Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the legislation would “provide an effective tool to bring to justice those who use technology to harm others”.

Main image: Jackie Fox outside the Dáil. Photo:Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie