Charlotte’s Wish documentary: Bullies still taunting girl a year after suicide

A broken mum has revealed bullies are still taunting her beautiful daughter a year after she ended her life. She has joined other parents in demanding action ahead of the release of the documentary, Charlotte’s Wish.

A year after 13-year-old Corrine Lee Cheu ended her life, her family says the bullies are still taunting her.

Corrine was pushed around in the playground, told to kill herself and called an ugly rat to her face and online, but despite repeated pleas to the school for help her mum Jodie Fitzgerald says she was left without answers.

The harrowing death of Corrine had tragic similarities to the suicide of 12-year-old Charlotte O’Brien, whose death stopped the nation in September when she asked her parents in a farewell note to raise awareness.

The broken mum from Far North Queensland has joined Charlotte’s parents in calling for more action on bullying. She has added her voice and Corrine’s story to the Charlotte’s Wish documentary, to be released across all News Corp mastheads on Sunday.

Corrine Lee Cheu’s family say bullies are still taunting their beautiful daughter.

Damian Lee Cheu, ‘the best big brother ever’,

misses his sister Corrine every day.

Jodie says there are still posts being put up on Instagram about bullying “a girl named Lee Chu” the night she died.

“They told her to go kill herself, called her an ugly rat. And they said she would do it again if she had to,” Jodie revealed.

“And this is only a month ago. And I’m like, can’t they just let my poor daughter rest in peace?”

Jodie says she reported the content she found on Corrine’s phone to police.

“Yesterday I got a message and I deleted it and blocked the person. People saying horrible stuff about why Corinne killed herself and about our family. She comes from a very loving family, that’s the part that hurts the most.”

During a visit to Kairi this week, Jodie, her husband Monty, with the support of Corrine’s nanny Trish and siblings, laid bare their pain in the lead-up to their worst nightmare.

Corrine was the victim of relentless bullying before she died.

Her family said she was shy by nature and loved to go fishing with her dad and brother.

Desperate to protect her daughter in life from the relentless cruel taunts in the playground, Jodie reluctantly let her stay home from school for days on end.

“Once we knew Corrine was being bullied we did ask the school a few times ‘What is going on? What is going on? And they told us that unless they see it, they can’t do anything about it,” Jodie said.

“And I’m like, ‘well, that’s not on’. Then they started saying, ‘well, you need to send your daughter to school’.

“I said I’m not sending my daughter back to school until you figure out what’s going on and keep her safe.”

Corrine Lee Cheu’s casket.

Corrine, who was shy by nature and most comfortable barefoot and fishing for barramundi with her Dad and little brother Liam, had started acting differently about a month before her death in September 2023.

“I’d go to drop her off at school and she would be in the car just crying. And I’m like, ‘All right, you can stay home today’,” Jodie said.

“And then I asked her if there was something going on at school. She said ‘No, no’ But then it got to the point where she started wagging because she didn’t want to go to school.

“I kept asking and asking and then one of her friends came and said to me, ‘oh look, I think she’s getting picked on by a bunch of kids at school’.

“So we kept her home for a while and then she started to change her attitude and her moods started to change. She got more aggressive, more angry.

“She’d have more anger spurts, throw stuff in her room.

“She’d get up at 6am but still wasn’t ready for school by 10am.”

Corinne Lee Cheu (far left) with her family.

Jodie later learned Corrine was “getting a hard time” at Atherton State High School - “in places that weren’t seen”.

“At the bottom of the steps, in the toilets, they were calling her an ugly rat and pushing her around and just being really cruel,” Jodie said.

“I don’t really even want to know half of the stuff that was said, but just half of the stuff I found on her phone was enough. And the same people that were doing it at school were also then doing it on Snapchat.”

Jodie and her husband Monty were reluctant to let Corrine have a phone but a couple of months prior to her death she had been bashed by a group of girls in the main street of town.

She wasn’t allowed to have Snapchat but would keep opening new accounts unbeknown to her parents.

Corinne Lee Cheu’s little brother, Liam, holding her ashes.

Corinne Lee Cheu with her little brother, Liam.

When Corrine had the “last meltdown before she passed” she agreed with her mum that she needed to go see someone about her struggles.

“I said to her, ‘I think it’s time. This is not you. Your moods change. You are not yourself. This is not normal teenage behaviour. I’ve never seen you like this before’.

“And she agreed. She gave me a big hug and then went off playing with her little brother. We lived in a big driveway and went downhill. So she’d get on a skateboard and she sat on a skateboard and just rolled down the hill.

“She was playing with Liam and she was happy again. But then seven days later she was gone.”

After Corrine’s death the grieving parents had several meetings with the school.

“They weren’t much help at all, if I’m being honest. And there are a lot of other parents I’ve spoken to who have experienced similar things but they don’t wish to talk.

“They’ve directly messaged me on Corinne’s page and have said similar things.

“There was a mum who messaged me and said that a month before Corrine took her life, her son was also being badly bullied at the high school and he tried to take his life, but luckily didn’t succeed.

“He’s 16. Corrine’s not the only one. I still feel so angry and hurt because I reached out to them on so many levels, interviews, meetings.

“They had a big meeting with me and I felt overwhelmed. They asked for a meeting and I went in and they had just about every teacher in the conference room bombarding just me,

asking what they should do, what would I like to happen.”

Corrine's family carry the casket at her funeral. Picture: Supplied

A drawing by Corrine of flowers. Her father had the image tattooed on his arm.

Jodie wanted something she thought was relatively simple.

“I told them ‘you have those big signs at the front of the school that light up. That’s just not doing anything. It’s just sitting there, just being a billboard’. I said, ‘why can’t you be a billboard for mental health? Put some lifeline numbers up. That’s all I want’.”

Another suggestion was playing a mental health tips and support video during the 20-minute morning class that teachers use to plan their lessons.

“It’s just 20 minutes where they sit there and do nothing while the teachers get prepared, so they could have a little film playing, it doesn’t have to have noise or be disruptive, but nothing ever happened.”

“I asked them if I could put up some permanent signage. It doesn’t have to have Corrine’s face on it, just some number, that’s all I wanted. Some teens might laugh about it but if one student takes down the number that’s one we have helped.”

Corinne’s family help to raise awareness about bullying and mental health through Corrine’s One More Light Foundation.

Jodie wouldn’t wish her pain on any other parents and spends her days now working with her husband and mother and children to raise awareness about bullying and mental health through Corrine’s One More Light Foundation.

“It needs to stop. Too many parents and siblings are suffering. I now have my 16-year-old son who is traumatised for the rest of his life because he had to give his own sister CPR.

“Now he’s asking questions about why he couldn’t bring his sister back to life.

“It’s just so impossible to accept. She came from a very loving, caring family. And she used to tell me everything and that’s the part that hurt the most. She told me about her boyfriend and she told me she tried vapes. And she told me she shoplifted a few times. But she didn’t confide in me when she was hurting the most.

“She just didn’t feel she could come to anybody and say, ‘Hey, I’m having a really shit time’. She didn’t have anyone at school who wanted to help.”

- The Charlotte’s Wish documentary will be released on November 17. Watch it here.

Originally published as Charlotte’s Wish documentary: Bullies still taunting girl a year after suicide