FOLLOWING this afternoon's ruling that Natasha MacBryde killed herself, her devastated family has released this statement.

“As a family, we continue to deal daily with the impact that the terrible loss of Tasha has had on all of our lives.

"She was a bright and beautiful girl whose smile and sparkle lit up not only our world, but also that of her friends and all who knew her.

“Beyond this loss, the struggle to understand why she took such a devastating path has made the pain even more difficult to bear.

"The inquest has been an agonising process for us all. It has, however, enabled us to get closer to Tasha, by seeing more of what she kept to herself, together with some of the aspects of her life that she was struggling to deal with.

“It seems that a combination of circumstances came together in Tasha’s mind to create an intolerable situation for her, when she was already dealing with the normal difficulties of teenage life.

"We believe that the evocative lyrics of one of her favourite songs, ‘Grenade’ by Bruno Mars, coupled with access to certain websites suggesting such actions, caused her to make such a sudden drastic and uncharacteristic decision.

“The family believes that the anonymous postings on the ‘Formspring’ social networking website were a significant contributor to the events on Sunday, 13 February, and we seek to understand the motivation of those who choose to send spiteful and vindictive messages to their peers.

"We can only hope that lessons have been learned.

“We would like to thank everyone – our friends, family and the police services who have all helped us to cope with these dreadful times.

“We miss Tasha immensely, she was a beautiful and talented daughter and we are grateful to have had her in our lives.”