A DISTRESSED schoolgirl set herself on fire after splitting up with her boyfriend, an inquest heard.

Rebecca Berry was just 15 years old when her mum found her burned body in the garden of their Dorset home.

Dorset coroner Sheriff Payne heard Rebecca, known has Rebe, had bombarded her ex-boyfriend, a fellow pupil at Queen Elizabeth School in Wimborne, with messages after he called off their relationship.

On the day of her death she sent him a message warning she would commit suicide “tonight” and added: “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. I don’t matter so just forget about me. It was only five months of your whole life. Bye.”

Later she told him: “I have got this all planned, it’s great. I just wanted to say I love you for the last time so bye.”

The boy, who cannot be named, replied: “Rebe stop being stupid, this is getting out of hand” but she replied: “It is too late, I am going now.”

The Bournemouth inquest heard Rebe had talked about suicide on previous occasions and had been referred to a children’s advocate for Action for Children and to social services.

Advocate Jessica Baker told of a “bizarre and unsettling” meeting with Rebe during which she refused to come out of a sleeping bag and said she wanted her brother to disappear.

“She presented as a very lonely, isolated and depressed young lady” said Ms Baker.

Rebe’s ex-boyfriend sobbed as he gave evidence and told the coroner he did not believe Rebe would contemplate suicide.

A social worker also told the inquest she had no reason to believe Rebe would kill herself.

The coroner heard Rebe took the day off school on Monday, December 1, last year and remained at home in the village of Edmondsham, near Verwood.

She lived in a farmhouse with her brother, Joe, mum Gill and step-dad Scott Taylor. The inquest heard Gill and Matthew Berry adopted Joe when he was 17 months old and Rebe when she was just six months old. Gill and Matthew had split up and Gill married Scott in May last year.

During the evening of December 1, Gill called Joe and Rebe to watch a television programme and realised she was not in the house.

Tealights were seen glowing from a den in the garden in which Rebe had created a shrine following the death of her kitten, Honey.

Gill then found her daughter’s burned body alongside the tealights, an empty bottle of surgical spirit, an aerosol body spray and a lighter.

Emergency services were called and paramedic Emily Schofield told the inquest she believed Rebe had been dead for a couple of hours.

A post mortem examination concluded she had died of inhalation of smoke caused by self-immolation.

The coroner recorded a narrative verdict which said: “She died as a result of self-immolation but there is doubt as to whether she intended her actions would result in her death.”

He added: “I do not think, at the end of the day, that she had thought this through. I can’t be absolutely certain that she realised that playing with these items was going to result in her death.

“She may have caused herself significant harm that would bring everybody to her and care for her and have the effect that she wanted.”