Dinal De Alwis, a 16-year-old Sinhalese student, has ended his life after allegedly being blackmailed with his private photos by yahoo boys from Nigeria.
Alwis had just started sixth form when he was contacted by someone on social media app Snapchat, apparently from Nigeria.
Dinal was sent two photos of himself and told they would be sent to “all his online followers” unless he paid £100, the hearing was told.
The student left his family home, near Croydon, south London, and recorded a brief video saying he planned to end it all.
According to his dad, Kaushallya De Alwis, “He messaged my wife and I to say he loved us, and he told his two brothers that he loves them, and said they need to ‘look after mum and dad!”
Police and the National Crime Agency admitted to Dinal’s parents that they were unable to trace the blackmailer but said that he appeared to have been operating from Nigeria.
South London Coroner’s Court heard that the blackmailer, who is also thought to have had other victims wrote: “So you think blocking me can stop me? What do you want me to do – you want me to send to all of your followers? Why can’t you just pay me? £100?”
Dinal, who had begun studying for the International Baccalaureate in sixth form and was top of the school in English and economics, had desires to attend University of Cambridge to read economics.
However, the contact with the blackmailer happened in October 2022, weeks into Dinal’s sixth form programme.
Once blackmailed, Dinal, a keen rugby player, responded that he had assumed the pictures had already been distributed.
The boy slipped out of the house at 2am and recorded a brief video of himself walking down a suburban street. Little more than an hour later, his body was found.
Mr De Alwis wept as he told the coroner: “Dinal was the most caring son. He was bright. He got straight As in all of his subjects at GCSEs and was top of the school for English and economics.
We come from Sri Lanka, so we were so proud to hear he was so good at English. He was brave. He played for the football and rugby teams at Whitgift School.
He never asked for anything from us. He was always happy with what he had. His loss is the biggest possible loss. It is so incredibly painful.
The fact that he ended his life in this way… the world is so cruel.
He didn’t show any sort of unhappiness. I think he wanted to avoid any shame from the images going public. I wish he had spoken to us.”
