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WATCH: Mother of teen who died 'attempting TikTok trend' calls for social media ban on under 16s
Jan 19, 2026
A bereaved mother has launched legal action against TikTok following the death of her 14-year-old son, after allegedly losing his life while attempting one of the platform's trends.Speaking to GB News, Ellen Roome, mother of Jools Sweeney, has fought for more than two years to access her son's app data, which would provide answers as to what content he was watching before his death.FULL STORY HERE.
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0:00
I love you. Those were the final words of 14-year-old Jules before he died
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reportedly during a TikTok blackout challenge. Well, his mother, Ellen, is suing the platform, alleging it played a role in his death and
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she wants answers. Well, a TikTok spokesperson said that we strictly prohibit content that
0:24
promotes or encourages dangerous behaviour. Well joining us now is Ellen Room. Good morning
0:32
to you Ellen. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning. I'm so sorry for the
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loss of your son. Can you tell us as much as you can just about the circumstances that led up to
0:46
his death? So Jules have been playing for the day, been with a group of friends out on a boat
0:52
playing football. I had been out for the day, but I was ringing him throughout the day
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as I always would have done. And I rang, and he said
1:01
Mum, I started a fire pit, but I couldn't start it. I used your nail varnish remover
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And I remember saying, oh, gosh, just be careful. He was being a typical teenage boy And I said so anyway you can see on our security camera him saying goodbye to his best friend at 8 that evening And he laughing and saying see you later Mont And then I came home an hour and a half later and found him unconscious in his bedroom
1:25
What do you believe happened in those 90 minutes there, Ellen? Well, the truth is, I don't know
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There was nothing found offline. His inquest, there's nothing ruled that he had any mental health problems
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so he wasn't being bullied so what did happen and i went to the social media companies and said
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um you know i want to see what he's looking at online because i didn't feel my 23 minute
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long inquest uh substantially looked into why my child wasn't here and social media companies said
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no at the time archie battersby uh another little boy had had the same accident six days before jaws
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and everybody kept saying could it be the blackout challenge like archie battersby and that's when i
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raised that potentially it could have been that. And the police said to me, it might be, but we can't prove it
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I went to social media companies and said to TikTok, show me what he was watching. And they refused
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As a parent, you have no legal rights to see what your children look at online
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Well I mean you can understand that a social media company might want to protect the privilege of a user but at the end of the day you the mother of a young man
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who's died in these terrible circumstances. What on earth is the reasoning for not allowing you access
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to the browser history there? Well, I've had various comments. I mean, I've sat in Parliament with representatives from TikTok
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and they said they might be sued for release of data. and the MPs actually challenged on that and said, who's going to sue you
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And if there was data of other children, they could redact that. They could take off all the names
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I don't need to see who said it. I want to see their messages. I want to see what algorithms was fed to him
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And they've refused. Now they're saying they may well have deleted Jules' data
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but that hasn't been confirmed. About 10 days ago, Gloucestershire Police have agreed to relook into things
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and they have done a forensics download of Jules' device back in April 22
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when he died, but it wasn't looked at forensically. So I'm waiting for the police now to review that forensically
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which might open up new angles. But ultimately, if the social media companies wanted to give me answers
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they could say, here you go, bereaved parent. This is all we've got on your son. I hope you find out what happened
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And they refused which I think if they had nothing to hide and they didn have dangerous things on their platform why couldn I see it And just before we let you go this morning because we are short of time would you prefer to see and would you like to see a wider social media ban for under 16
3:54
Something like we've seen happen in Australia. We know that the prime minister is thinking about it at the moment, too
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Is that something that you would support? 100%. And I was just with four other bereaved parents
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And I asked them if they thought the same, and they did. And I spoke to Esther Jai and Lauren Lefebvre yesterday
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So I know of six bereaved parents, all 100% think we should definitely, definitely take this off children
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And we're not saying get rid of the internet. We're saying get rid of harmful social media and let these children be children
4:22
Ellen, we are so sorry for your loss. We are so grateful that you've chosen to come and speak to us this morning
4:28
Thank you very much. Thank you, Ellen. The best of luck. Yeah. Well, a spokesperson for TikTok has said that our deepest sympathies remain with these families
4:37
And again, they say that we strictly prohibit content that promotes or encourages dangerous behavior
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Using robust detection systems and dedicated enforcement teams to proactively identify and remove this content
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we remove 99% that's found to break these rules before it is reported to us
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As a company, we comply with the UK's strict data protection laws
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