A U.K. woman died from suffocation when she strangled herself for an online creep who paid her to perform “dangerous and degrading” webcam sex acts while he watched from home, a coroner ruled Wednesday.
Disability worker Hope Barden, 21, was moonlighting as a webcam girl to make extra cash when pervert Jerome Dangar, 45, paid her to strangle herself — then watched as she suffocated in March 2018 without calling for help.
Hope Barden was a disability worker made extra money as a webcam girl. (Staffordshire Police)
But Dangar — who police said encouraged Barden to perform increasingly dangerous sex acts during their three-month relationship — will never face charges after he was found dead in his prison cell on April 15 this year.
Authorities said he had been online when Barden died on March 15 and made no attempt to raise any emergency response when he saw she was in danger.
The woman’s distraught family said she was “left to die” by Dangar after an inquest into her death ruled it was unlawful killing.
The woman’s body was discovered by her roommate in Burton-upon-Trent before police eventually arrested the pub landlord in connection with her death in May.
Barden’s mother said her daughter — who worked as a disability carer but became a webcam girl to earn extra money — was “beautiful and intelligent” and called for better regulation of the industry.
“Anyone with daughters or other relatives involved in this terrible industry must be aware of the risk of harm,” Kate Barden said in a statement released through Staffordshire Police.
“A duty of care exists in any relationship. If someone is obviously in danger, one has a legal obligation to take steps to help. In this tragic case, Hope was left to die,” she said.
