More than 700 people in the UK have searched a suicide-supporting website for someone to die with, a BBC investigation has found.

The site, whose name we are not mentioning here, has a members-only section where users can search for a suicide partner.

We have linked several double suicides to the “partner thread.”

Our investigation also found that sex offenders have used the website to target vulnerable women.

In December 2019, Angela Stevens’ 28-year-old son Brett travelled from his home in the Midlands to Scotland to meet a woman he had contacted through the partner thread.

The couple rented an Airbnb and committed suicide together.

“I miss everything about Brett, his smile, his infectious laugh,” says Angela.

Since her son’s death, she has spent years researching the pro-suicide website – especially the partner thread.

“It’s a very dangerous place,” says Angela.

She compares it to a dark version of a dating app.

“Where else would you find a partner to take your own life with?” she says. “It’s just disgusting.”

The thread encourages users to end their lives – and offers instructions on how to do so.

Our analysis found that there are over 5,000 posts in this thread from people all over the world.

We will not name the site or provide details about the suicide methods recommended there.

A BBC investigation in March found that more than 130 Britons may have committed suicide after using a chemical advertised on the website.

• If you have any of the problems mentioned in this story, you can visit BBC Action Line for a list of websites and hotlines that can offer direct help at any time.

The BBC team set up an anonymous account and analyzed the number and content of the messages.

Members publish their age, gender, place of residence and preferred manner of death in search of someone who wants to die with them.

Helen Kite’s sister Linda was looking for a partner for 2023.

It is a forum that “exploits desperate souls,” says Helen. “The partner area leads them on an inevitable path to death.”

“I’m 54 years old (female) and live near London,” Linda wrote. “I can travel and could pay for a hotel if that works out. Of course it would be good to chat first.”

Linda contacted a man through the partner thread and met him at a hotel in Romford, East London.

They ingested a toxic chemical and died together on July 1, 2023.

Helen says Linda was found “lying next to the body of a complete stranger.”

She believes that every day the forum “traps innocent victims in search of support without the authorities being able to do anything about it.”

It causes “unspeakable misery and suffering for those left behind,” she says.

But things got worse.

In September 2023, Helen’s other sister Sarah – devastated by the loss of Linda – also entered the forum, ingested the same toxic chemical and died.

Another, even more disturbing aspect of the partner thread came to light during our investigation.

Perpetrators appear to use this method to target vulnerable and suicidal people, especially women.

In 2022, a court in Glasgow heard how 31-year-old Craig McInally had responded to a series of posts in the partner thread written by young women looking for someone to die with.

He persuaded one of them, a defenseless 25-year-old woman, to come to his apartment and “practice” suicide.

McInally repeatedly strangled her until she lost consciousness.

McInally was arrested at his home and it emerged that he had offered similar “advice and assistance” to other young women at risk of suicide.

He had met them all in the partner thread.

One of them was 22-year-old Romanian student Roberta Barbos.

In messages seen by the BBC, McInally told Roberta he had “a hell of a lot of experience” and promised to be with her “all the way”.

She met McInally once and then refused to see him again – but took her own life alone in February 2020.

“It’s like something out of a horror movie, from another world,” said Roberta’s mother Maria Barbos. “I couldn’t believe that such a website even existed. These are sick minds.”

McInally was given a life sentence suspended for life, a punishment prescribed in Scotland for the most serious cases of sexual and violent crimes other than murder.

Under the terms of the agreement, he was sentenced to a minimum term of two years and three months in prison and life probation.

During our research, we found that some forum users had even traveled abroad to meet partners in the last two years.

We know of two cases where men from the US have travelled to the UK to meet at-risk young women and ‘help’ them with their suicide plans.

At the request of the families of those involved, we are not mentioning their names.

In one case, a man from Minnesota flew to the UK and stayed in a hotel for over a week with a 21-year-old woman he met through the thread.

On the 11th day of sharing a hotel room, the young woman ingested a toxic chemical and died.

The man claimed he was asleep when she took the substance and called emergency services when he realized what she had done.

He was arrested and interrogated by the police, but released without charge and allowed to fly home.

In a second case, a man from Florida is said to have arranged a meeting with four people he had contacted via the thread – one of them in the UK.

Our investigation revealed that in one case he gave a gun to a woman in the United States.

She was found by the police before she could carry out her suicide plan.

This man also admitted to flying to London and meeting a young British woman in a hotel.

It is not known who this woman was or what happened to her.

The man was not charged with any crime.

The previous Conservative government introduced the Online Safety Act in 2023, which would allow regulator Ofcom to take action against the website.

The new Labour government says it stands by the new law and is “determined to take action to put an end to this harm on the internet”.

A spokesperson told us: “We want to introduce these new protective measures as quickly as possible.”

Ofcom is still consulting on the best way to implement the law and its enforcement powers will not come into force until later this year.

According to our previous reports, it has contacted the site’s administrators.

The regulator admits that it will be “quite difficult” to take legal action against the website because it is small and based in the US.

However, as we investigated the site, we discovered that one of the main moderators is a woman from the West of England.

We are not mentioning her name because we are concerned about her mental health.

Melanie Dawes, chief executive of Ofcom, says the threat of coercive measures has so far had no effect.

“We contacted (the site) and actually told them that this was illegal and was promoting suicide,” she said. “Initially they made it unavailable to UK users, but now they’ve backed away from that.”

Bereaved families say the partner thread directly encourages suicide, which is illegal in the UK both online and offline.

“I think it’s a predator’s dream to have a partner thread like this,” says Angela Stevens.

“Because it’s so vulnerable to abuse that I find it really, really scary.”