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Jeffrey, the poor girl's parents are entitled to be appointed personal representatives of her estate and so they have standing to represent her in that capacity. The outcome of the inquest could have repercussions for a potential future civil claim by the estate. Which is why the social media companies will be tooled with lawyers up at the inquest to argue that their clients had nothing to do with the death.

While I have every sympathy with the family, and believe that a better system should exist, the Legal Aid Agency appear to have applied their rules entirely correctly on this occasion. The benefit in this specific case would be to arm the estate with a potential civil claim, which is not in the wider public interest.

For a debate on the wider issue of the impact of social media on children and how best to protect them, a select committee or similar would be the appropriate mechanism, where of course Molly's parents and others affected (there are 200 similar cases a year according to BBC news last night) would expect to be permitted to have their say.