Support for blacklisting text bullies

A Waihi mum is giving her support to new cellphone technology launched in a bid to stop teenagers being harassed by text bullies.
The new service, which allows cellphone users to blacklist up to 20 numbers, has been welcomed by Heather Powell, whose teenage son took his own life last year after receiving what she says were bullying texts.
Schools will be involved from next year, with Vodafone, the company introducing the technology, helping educate students on how to protect themselves against unwanted messages.
The Vodafone Blacklist service will be available to the company's 2.5 million customers in eight days.
A second phase of increased controls for parents will be introduced next year.
The company hopes the free service will give customers the power to control who they receive TXT/PXT from.
It allows the receiver of unwanted texts to block them, but the sender doesn't know this is happening.
Vodafone gets 6000 calls a year about text bullying.
Ms Powell, whose son Michael, 15, took his own life last year, was at the launch in Auckland this week.
She believes Michael killed himself in April last year after misinterpreting a series of texts from two girls, aged 13 and 14, who indicated they were involved in a suicide pact.
One girl had created a "graphic fantasy" that the other girl was dead and they were also on their way. Michael, a Katikati College student, took his life in a toilet block after receiving the texts.
Coroner Peter Ryan found "distressing and disturbing" late-night texts had been a "significant factor" in the lead-up to Michael's suicide.
But he stopped short of calling the case "cyber-bullying", something the Powell family has asked Chief Coroner Neil MacLean and Minister of Justice, Simon Power, to review.
And in another widely reported case, a 15-year-old Rotorua teenager took her own life after receiving bullying texts from the wife of 27-year-old Pelesasa Tiumalu, who she met working at McDonald's.
The girl began sending Tiumalu suicidal texts, which were intercepted by his wife, Elina, who replied: "Go kill yourself, I don't care."
Twelve hours after the dying teen was rushed to hospital, her father had to turn off her life support.
Tiumalu was jailed for four years and three months for having sex with a minor (the 15-year-old) and his wife, Elina, was earlier given a nine-month suspended sentence for intimidation and threatening to kill.
Ms Powell said she was rapt a company such as Vodafone had introduced the technology, because text bullying was a big problem.
Vodafone had kept in contact with her over the past year about the new technology.
"The concept is wonderful. It's about people working together and it's meaningful. And it's well overdue," Ms Powell said.
Also with her at the launch was her fourth and youngest child, Chris, 13.
He won't get a cellphone until he is older, she said.
Michael had his first cellphone at 13. Ms Powell said parents should consider when their children were mature enough to have a cellphone.