BRITISH MAN JAILED FOR ENCOURAGING US CITIZEN'S SUICIDE

Dylan Phelan, aged 21 from Morley, has been sentenced to six years and four months in prison after admitting to encouraging a vulnerable American to take his own life. Phelan communicated with Travis Dyer, a 21-year-old from Louisiana, via the Discord online platform over several months. On 30 October 2024, during a two-minute video call, Phelan and two other men based in the United States encouraged Dyer to kill himself. Dyer died from a gunshot wound. Judge Barry Cotter KC stated that Phelan had acted out of "morbid curiosity" and that Dyer had required "help and support but he got the very opposite of that from you".

The three men were members of a private Discord server called 'Recovery4all', ostensibly focused on mental health discussions. Phelan and the two men, identified only as Mads and Rob, worked together to encourage Dyer's suicide as part of what prosecutors described as a "campaign of cruelty". The group encouraged Dyer to spend all his money on drugs and alcohol to eliminate his financial means of survival. They also pressured him to carve their initials into his skin, with Phelan's name scratched onto his hip. During the fatal video call, Phelan could be heard laughing after Dyer took his own life.

The day after Dyer's death, Phelan sent a message to another Discord user named Zachary Law confirming what had occurred. Law, who held no involvement in Dyer's death, subsequently discovered posts from Mads revealing the group's role in encouraging the suicide. The two other men involved remain at large in the United States. Leeds Crown Court heard the evidence throughout the proceedings.