Archie Battersbee’s mother has said she was trolled for having a birthday party at his grave.
Hollie Dance said she had been the target of “very serious” online abuse since May, weeks before her son’s life support was withdrawn on August 6.
Ms Dance said the trolling was “absolutely horrible” and added: We have over 10,000 screenshots of some of the despicable comments and accusations.”
She said much of the abuse took place on social media, but there was also a “noose in his grave” and “hanging ropes from the wake tree.”
Ms Dance continued: ‘I’ve had two death threats. My son has been threatened.
“It’s just constant, every day.”
She said people had complained to Southend Borough Council after she visited his grave with a gazebo on her birthday on Friday.
“The fact that they’ve now called the council, the cemetery, they’ve said we have this gazebo and we’re partying, we’re playing music, eating, drinking, which makes it sound really, really bad,” she said.
“It sounds so bad and it isn’t. The gazebo, the little gazebo was put up because rain was predicted on my birthday.
“Anyone who’s worried about me right now knows where I’ll be because, of course, I’m here with Arch every day.
“They were just doing something fun, a few of them came and sat down with me. Asked permission from the people in Archie’s line.
“There are literally six graves here, permission asked, ‘does anyone else object?”, everyone was more than OK with it.
“One of the ladies whose daughter is also here, she actually sat down with her Starbucks coffee, that’s the drink they mean.
Another lady came over and brought me some chocolates and said ‘my heart goes out to you today Hollie, your birthday, I knew you’d be here with Archie, where else would you be’.
“That’s the food they’re talking about. It was baking at 3pm so we sat under a gazebo and then the gazebo was taken down.
“It’s like I can’t grieve no matter what I do.”
Judges were told that on April 7, Ms Dance found Archie unconscious with a ligature over his head at home in Southend in Essex.
She thinks he entered an online challenge and suffered brain damage.
Doctors who treated Archie at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London, believed he was brainstem dead and said continuing life-support treatment was not in his best interest.
His funeral took place earlier this month.
Cllr Martin Terry, Southend Borough Council Public Protection Cabinet Secretary, said: ‘We understand that people will always grieve in different ways when they lose a loved one.
“We want to remind all families with loved ones in the cemetery of the terms and conditions when they bought the plot, and to remind them that the cemetery is a public space that many people use to visit their loved ones, and as such we want to ensure that it remains respectful for everyone.’
Essex Police have been contacted for comment.
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