"The death of Alexander McQueen today is tragic. It is deeply shocking. It's a terrible loss and a terrible waste.

It's time that male suicide is taken seriously by not just the media but across society. Gun death, knife crime, HIV AIDs are all high on the public and political agenda. It's time male suicide was up there too.

Suicide isn’t inevitable, but if we are to bring the rates back down, then we need to discuss why men here – and across the world – are so prone to kill themselves. Until it's out in the open, this issue won’t go away.

What is also deeply shocking is the sheer numbers of men who kill themselves each year in the UK – over 4000, hundreds of whom will be around the same age as Alexander McQueen."

Notes:
Suicide is the biggest killer of men aged 15-34 in UK, and it is a very male issue – affecting those in their 20s, 30s and 40s. 75% of all suicides in the UK are male.
Taking the last available statistics for the UK, there were 5,728 suicides in 2008, 4,340 of which were male. This isn’t necessarily a ‘young’ issue. There were 1,277 suicides and undetermined deaths of men aged 15-34 in 2008 and 1,108 in the 35-44 age group (source: ONS and Census NISRA (northern Ireland) and General Register Office for Scotland).

Statement from Director, Jane Powell