Teenage bridge suicide: care home reported 200 missing

The care home attended by Neve Lafferty, 15, and Georgia Rowe, 14, the teenage girls who leapt to their deaths from a bridge, reported more than 200 cases of missing youngsters in the last year, it has emerged.
  Neve and Georgia jumped more than 100ft from the Erskine Bridge, near Glasgow, into the River Clyde last Sunday, hours after spending a ”happy” weekend with relatives.

They were pupils at the nearby Good Shepherd Centre in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, and had apparently sneaked out of the centre shortly before 9pm.

The Care Commission confirmed that the centre reported 232 cases of young people absconding to police in one 12-month period.

The Commission said that many of the incidents were repeat cases involving the same girls.

The two girls who died were among nine live-in residents at the open unit, which also has 21 day-girls who live in foster or care homes.

Pupils there are not supervised around the clock but any outing requires authorisation.

The centre is an independent unit owned and managed by its voluntary board of managers.

It cares for young girls referred by local authority educational and psychological services, social work departments and children’s hearings.

It is affiliated to the CORA Foundation, a non-profit-making company owned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland.

The Care Commission later clarified that the figures were for January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2008, which were the most recent figures available.