Suicide prevention charity enters administration

A suicide prevention charity, which received more than £1.5m of funding from the 3 Dads Walking group, has gone into administration.

Opus Restructuring and Insolvency said its appointment as administrators for Papyrus Prevention of Young Suicide had followed an "extended and extremely difficult period" for the charity.

The 3 Dads Walking, Andy Airey from Cumbria, Mike Palmer from Greater Manchester and Tim Owen from Norfolk, each lost a daughter – Sophie, Beth and Emily - to suicide. They said they found it "very difficult to accept" Papyrus was closing.

Chair of Papyrus trustees Harry Biggs-Davison said: "It has been almost unbearable for us trustees to have had to make the decision."

Biggs-Davison, who lost his 25-year-old son Patrick to suicide, in 2015 said he took pride "in the certainty that our charity has saved and offered hope to countless young lives during the past 30 years".

But he added: "After nearly two years of struggling to keep the charity alive in such a difficult financial climate, we have had to accept that we have no alternative."

Since 2021 Airey, Palmer and Owen have taken on four epic walks around the UK to raise money for the Papyrus' helpline, which extended its opening times to 24 hours a day and became HOPELINE247.

"We know that services within the NHS have signposted young people and families to HOPELINE247 and relied on the expertise of Papyrus to provide support that they could not always provide themselves," Airey, Palmer and Owen said in a joint statement.

"And yet this vital national service has not received the level of sustained government funding needed to secure its future.

"How can a service that is relied upon by the NHS, that specialises in preventing young suicide and that has supported countless young people in their darkest moments be left financially dependent on charitable fundraising?

"This is not simply the closure of another charity, it is the loss of a service that has been helping to keep young people alive."

The adminstrators said the charity would close with immediate effect but that a transfer of services to willing parties would be sought.

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