Tragic Scots Teen Dies While Watching Tipping Point After Discovering Mum with Stranger on Couch

A tragic schoolgirl found her mother and a man in an ‘inappropriate situation’ in their home, an inquiry heard. Robyn Goldie, 13, told teachers she had discovered her mum Sharon, 49, on a couch with the stranger. She passed the information on to staff at her school who flagged it as causing concern for her welfare.

Robyn, of Wishaw, Lanarkshire, died after developing peritonitis and a perforated duodenal ulcer in 2018. Scotland’s Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, ordered a fatal accident inquiry after ruling the circumstances of her death gave rise to ‘serious public concern’. Pamela Ferry, a pupil support teacher, told Hamilton Sheriff Court that issues over Robyn’s home life had been highlighted in 2017, as per reports Daily Record.

Ferry told the inquiry Robyn was deemed as being at risk of harm after she had shared photos of herself in the bath on the internet. She said: “We raised a concern about Robyn because we had been informed that Robyn had turned up at her home and her mum was on the couch with a man.” Asked by Scott Blair, advocate for North Lanarkshire Council, if Goldie and the man were in an ‘inappropriate situation’, Ferry replied: “Yes.”

She added: “Robyn had shared photographs of herself with males via some sort of website and we weren’t sure who the males were or indeed even where they were from. “If I remember correctly, she had taken photos of herself in the bath and shared them online and she had been having conversations with boys outside of school but she didn’t have relationships like that in school.”

Ferry said Robyn ‘stood out’ when she joined the school and thought she wore ‘too much makeup’ for a child her age. The inquiry had earlier heard Goldie had left Robyn watching TV’s Tipping Point and went to a pub on the day she died. The probe also heard Goldie told her not to report an alleged rape as it would lead to her being examined by doctors and having to go to court.

She said Robyn was ‘boasting’ that she was ‘no longer a virgin’ in the aftermath of the alleged assault by a 14-year-old boy near Bellshill, Lanarkshire. Goldie, of Kilsyth, Lanarkshire, admitted wilful ill-treatment and neglect between July 2017 and July 2018 and was jailed for three years and six months in October 2020. The inquiry before Sheriff Linda Nicolson continues.