“Bullies Should Visit Schools and Explain Why Carolina Died”

NOVARA - “If there was really justice, these kids would have to go round visiting schools for years, explaining how much damage they caused with their videos, messages and insults. In other words, they should be put to the test. I’m not screaming out for life imprisonment or exemplary punishments. But I demand that they be made fully aware of what they have done and just how serious it is. They should at least have to explain the risks of the internet to youngsters, and how it can turn them into monsters.”

There is no anger in this man’s words. “What good would it do?” he says, before I have a chance to ask why. “Anger won’t bring my daughter back. If I think back to that night...” He goes silent, his eyes downcast, lost in his memories. “At three in the morning the carabinieri called. A voice asked me if I was the father of Carolina Picchio. Yes, I replied. They asked ‘Where’s your daughter?’ I said, ‘Asleep in her room’.”
Paolo stops, tears in his eyes. “I’m sorry; it’s just that every time I think about that night, I can’t reach the end of the story. I just can’t do it.”

“The end of the story” is that Carolina threw herself from the window of her room on the third floor. The end of the story is that someone parking their car saw her lying on the ground and called for help. It is Carolina’s father running down the stairs, in the grip of panic. The tragedy unfolded during the night of 4 January 2013, Carolina’s last, “and in a sense my last too,” says Paolo. “Since then I have continued to breathe, but not to live. Living is something else.”

Before jumping to her death, Carolina wrote a two-page letter, which opened as follows: “I just wanted to say goodbye. Why am I doing this? Well, bullying, that’s why. Words hurt more than a beating; God they hurt”. Later on, she addresses her tormentors directly: “What do you get out of this apart from making me suffer?”. On the second page, she wrote: “Thank you for your bullying, lads; you did a great job.” She then goes on to list the names of those who tormented her.

Paolo tries to read the part of the letter that regards him (“Dad, you’re the kindest man in the world”) but has to stop once again to dry his tears. He changes the subject. “Let’s talk about these kids,” he says, the group that targeted Carolina, the six minors and the 18-year-old, who one day in December 2012 plied her with drink until she was practically unconscious, then filmed her with their phones as she vomited, while they pretended to engage in sexual acts. “My daughter left a note, so it didn’t take long to establish who had been making her life miserable for months and months, or who had been targeting her with all sorts of profanities, totally destroying her self-esteem. For a while I believed it was simply a case of verbal cruelty, but then the video emerged ... They posted it on the net ... over two thousand views in just a few hours ... Who knows what my poor Carolina must have gone through...”

This is the first cyberbullying trial in Italy. One of the boys was already over 18 at the time, and took advantage of a plea bargain in a separate criminal proceeding, while the other six were all minors. One was under the age of 14 at the time of the offence and thus not subject to prosecution, while the others were put on trial before the juvenile court. The court gave them between 15 and 27 months of “probation”, i.e. a suspended sentence and their assignment to an external facility which has the task of establishing their treatment as part of a recovery programme. Exactly what this treatment will entail is set to be decided in October, and it is precisely on this point that Paolo wants his opinion to be heard.

“Maybe they could assist elderly or disabled people, but above all I would expect them to become champions of the anti-bullying movement,” he says. They owe it to Carolina. I would have hoped to receive a letter from them to ask for forgiveness, but they haven’t been in touch at all. I don’t think they really understand just how responsible they are. When you’re in a gang, you always think that someone else was the worst in the group...”

Carolina’s boyfriend, one of those involved in shooting the video, was left paralyzed in the arms and legs after diving into the sea last year. Paolo saw him in a wheelchair, in court. “I’m sorry for what happened to him, but I have lost my daughter; I can’t forgive either him or the others.”

Those unforgivable youths exchanged messages like this: “Did you hear that Carolina has killed herself?” Answer: “Yes I heard. I’m almost tempted to go to the mortuary to have a last look at that ugly b****”.

English translation by Simon Tanner
www.simontanner.com