By Charlotte Webster-
A heartbroken mums have paid tribute to her son, who took his own life due to mental health issues, a year before his half sibling did the same.
Leon Junior, 21-year-old, from Gravesend, committed suicide and was found in woodland near his home. He had recently found he was to appear on the next series of Channel 4’s The Circle just days before he committed suicide, but the prospect of being on the show was not enough to keep him alive.
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The popular youngster who had just completed a trip to Tennerife cut his life short due to a series of issues subdued by an exterior which sadly collapsed in the end. The tragedy of his death was exacerbated just under a year later, when Leon’s older half brother, Tashan Larmond-Maginn died in April this year in similar circumstances. The perceived reasons for the suicides are too intimate and painful for print, and were a mixture of a number of complex reasons.
His sorrowful mum, Sheena, who declined to be pictured for this story, told The Eye Of Media.Com that the loss is ”soul destroying for her” and she wants the issue of mental health taken seriously, adding that no a day goes by without her thinking of her lovely sons tragically taken away by mental health.
“It is soul destroying to lose a child but to lose Tashan as well is a big loss,” she said.
“It is heart breaking because that is my child’s brother and it is another life. Another life that is just gone.”
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An inquest found Leon, who had been furloughed from his job at Gravity Trampoline Park in Bluewater, had taken his own life, but found “no single trigger”. Leon was quietly suffering from mental health issues, more serious than detected by those on the outside.
In a further tragedy, just under a year later, Leon’s older half brother Tashan Larmond-Maginn died in April this year in similar circumstances.
Over the weekend, Leon’s mum Sheena Hamid, alongside Tashan’s mum and other family and friends, gathered at Shorne Woods Country Park to pay tribute to the two youngsters who had so much ahead of them, but couldn’t take any more.
Balloons bearing the names of the siblings were released and a bench was decorated with Leon’s name and various tributes. Some well wishers came forward and movingly spoke of their fond memories with Leon when he was alive, detailing how he had been inspirational and at times been therapeutic in his contribution to their lives. 
Leon had been a popular contestant on E4’s reality TV series Club Rep Wars and had enjoyed his 12-month stint working and living in Tenerife.
Describing herself as an intelligent bubbly guy, she said he “could have done anything in this world”.
“Whatever he did he put his heart and soul into it and came out on top every time. That lad could have been whatever he wanted to be.
Leon was talented gymnast. Image: Supplied
He was very popular in school and would “always have a big smile on his face”, she said. “I still remember dropping Leon off at school,” she added. “He went down the road and all I heard was these voices shouting ‘Leon, Leon, Leon’.
“I turned around and there are all these little girls chasing him down the road.”
Leon’s death came as a huge shock to mum Sheena, who said her son always had massive lust for life and “grabbed every opportunity” that came his way.
“He had so many friends that loved him so much and a family that would bend over backwards to give him what he wanted,” she said. I actually believe he could have established a successful television career for himself.
Tashan Larmond-Maginn, from Gravesend. Photo: Nedim Nazerali.
In hindsight, Sheena feels her son was a little pensive the last few couple of times she spoke to him. The first after a supermarket trip together, and later when Leon arrived at her house upset over his second hand bike which needed repairing.
Sheena said: “I think about it now and that last couple of times he did seem a little bit quiet. As a mum you notice but I never thought too much of it.
“In lockdown he was really throwing himself into exercise. We even spoke about going running together and he joked ‘only if you can keep up with me’.”
Sheena raised both Leon and his older brother Jermaine as a single mother.
“I can’t turn the clock on my child, I can’t turn the clock on Tashan but if there is more help out there, if it helps just one family and stops them from having to go through what me and my family have gone through it’s got to be worth it.
Serious
Mental health is a topic taken very seriously by this publication, with a lot of training provided to every member within. The sad death of Leon and his sibling is enough motivation for more frequent coverage about mental health to raise more awareness of the many forms and shape mental health can take, and recommend ways for the public to help fight and overcome mental health problems whenever it shows itself around us.
For confidential support on an emotional issue, call Samaritans on 116 123 at an
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