Father's warning after teenage son kills himself over Snapchat nude photo blackmail

THE father of a sixth-form student who killed himself after being blackmailed over nude photographs today issued a warning about the dangers of social media, saying he does not want any other family to suffer as they have.

- Lydia Chantler-Hicks

Dinal De Alwis was a pupil at Whitgift School in Croydon, and was hoping to study economics at Cambridge University after earning straight A*s at GCSE.

But the 16-year-old, from Sutton, died by suicide after receiving threatening messages from a blackmailer, who contacted him on Snapchat. He was sent two naked photographs of himself and told they would be sent to "all his online followers" unless he paid £100.

The identity of the blackmailer is not known, but police and the National Crime Agency are said to have told Dinal's parents they may have been operating from Nigeria.