Parents throws five years old son over cliff

A UK couple who threw their five-year-old son over the notorious suicide cliffs at Beachy Head before jumping themselves did so because he was already dead.
The tragic twist in the tale of what at first seemed a horrific pact came after police followed a line of inquiry that originally saw them treating the deaths as suspicious.

"A line of inquiry is that the parents were so overcome with grief at their son's fairly sudden death that they decided they could not bear to go on without him," a police source told the Daily Mail.

"He had a short illness and died at home, of natural causes.

"They seem to have been a normal family struck by awful circumstances."

Coastguards found the three bodies at the base of the notorious suicide spot in East Sussex yesterday.

The boy's body was found in a backpack beside his parents' bodies.

A second backpack found by rescuers nearby was filled with toys.

"The bag was closed when I got to it. I saw what I thought was a doll's head, but on closer examination it was a child," Eastbourne Coastguard station officer Stuart McNabhe told reporters at the scene.

In my four years with the Coastguard I have never known anything like this and nobody else serving here recalls anything similar."

Another spokesman said the parents would have been killed instantly by the 190km/h impact.

"Dealing with the aftermath of people who have fallen 400 feet onto rocks is not pleasant but they would not have suffered - I can say that," he said.

The coastal lookout has been a regular scene for suicides since the seventh century, when St Wilfred is recorded to have found locals jumping off in despair after a three-year drought.

In 1997, it overtook San Franciscos Golden Gate Bridge as the worlds most frequented suicide spot.

A telephone box has been installed at the top with details of suicide helplines.

An average of 17 people a year throw themselves off the cliffs.

"Sadly, May seems to be the worst month for suicides here, local chaplain Ross Hardy said.

We don't know why.