Parents criticise ‘unforgivable’ delays by Meta in

Ros and Mark Dowey say social media firm delayed handing over key data to police investigating son Murray’s suicide

The mother of a 16-year-old boy who killed himself after being blackmailed on Instagram has criticised the platform’s owner, Meta, for “unforgivable” delays in releasing data that was key to the police investigation into her son’s death.

Murray Dowey died last December at his family home in Dunblane, Scotland. His parents, Ros and Mark, say they believe he was tricked into sending intimate pictures to an Instagram contact, who he thought was a girl his own age but turned out to be overseas criminals involved in financially motivated sexual extortion – known as “sextortion”.