A vulnerable teenager told to shield tragically took his own life two months into lockdown, an inquest heard.
Benjamin Catchpole, known as Benji, died in a wooded area in Hartlepool, Co Durham, last summer, with isolating at home "frustrating" him, his mum told a coroner.
Heartbroken Cheryl Ann Picken said her 15-year-old son had struggled to cope after being one of more than two million in the UK warned to shield against Covid-19.
Teesside Magistrates Court heard on Friday Benji suffered from ADHD and acute immune hepititus which affected his liver, reports Teesside Live.
Two walkers had found the teenager and alerted emergency services on May 24, with police identifying him at the scene using his Facebook profile picture.
Ms Picken said: "Benji was a loving, caring boy, he didn't suffer with any depression at all.
"He had his full life ahead of him and he was going to go in the army.
"He was down about his girlfriend at the start of May but not enough to do something like this."
Ms Picken said that he was a "good kid" and she rarely had any issues with him up until April last year.
She said she saw a change in him around May, when he wouldn't join her for his birthday meal, saying he wanted to be with his friends instead.
Ms Picken said she discovered he had broken up with his girlfriend and began to let Benji go outside for a walk each day.
She told the hearing in Middlesbrough: "He was going out on his bike and he was taking longer and longer."
Ms Picken said that on the day of Benji's death, he went out without eating and rang her asking to put some data on his phone.
She said she tried to call him back another five or six times but he did not answer.
His friend's mum's rang her to ask if it was true about Benji, but she was told to put down the phone by police, who were just about to inform her about her son.
Ms Picken said: "The police said they rang her to ask how she knew, she said she had found out on Facebook. Nothing was on Facebook until three in the morning."
The mum pointed out to DS Alistair Snowden, who was giving evidence to the court on behalf of Cleveland Police, that one of Benji's friends said he hadn't spoken to him from 1am.
However, she said that Benji's phone suggested that the boy was still messaging him until 2pm the next day.
DS Snowden, from Hartlepool CID, said he found "nothing" in messages Benji received "that suggested any malice".
He told senior coroner Clare Bailey there was no cause for concern among his friends to believe that he would be planning to take his own life.
Coroner Bailey said a pathologist found that Benji's brain had been starved of oxygen as a result of hanging, before recording the cause of death as suicide.
She added: "I'm satisfied that he made the decision to take his own life and took deliberate action to do so."
Following Benji's sudden death, floral tributes were left at the scene.
The Northern Education Trust, which runs Manor Community Academy - the school Benji attended - released a statement describing him as a "very bright young man, who had great potential to achieve his dreams".
A few days later his family and friends gathered for a balloon release in his memory.
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