The Gloucestershire mum who achieved a landmark change in the law following the untimely death of her teenage son, has now won a Pride of Britain Award.
Ellen Roome MBE, along with Esther Ghey and Ian Russell, received a Special Recognition Award in the Pride of Britain Awards 2026 for their incredible efforts to improve online safety for children and young people.
All three parents lost children due to different forms of online harm, and have all turned their personal tragedies into positive change through campaigns to change laws, hold tech giants accountable, and teach young people how to stay safe online.
Ellen's son, Jools Sweeney, died unexpectedly in April 2022 at the age of 14 – and she faced years of agony trying to uncover the part social media may have played in his death after the data on what he was looking at in the moments before he died was not provided to the coroner during the original inquest, which lasted just 23 minutes.
After tireless campaigning, and even commissioning a forensic analysis of Jools' phone herself, Ellen revealed that Jools' Law was being introduced in February 2026, as an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill demanding that social media companies ensure children's online data is preserved before it can be deleted, except in cases with their online activity is clearly not relevant to their death.
In July 2026, Ellen then won her four-year High Court battle for a fresh inquest into Jools' death, in what is considered 'a British legal first' – with the new inquest drawing on powers under the Online Safety Act 2023, which her fellow award winner Ian was instrumental in getting passed.
Alongside her monumental efforts in campaigning for better online safety for children in the UK, Ellen is also part of a lawsuit against TikTok LLC, TikTok Inc. and ByteDanceInc in the US, along with other bereaved British parents whose children died in similar circumstances.
Ellen said: 'It was a real honour to win the award, and to be stood on stage alongside Esther Ghey and Ian Russell, in special recognition of our services to children's online safety. To be recognised alongside them was amazing, it was a really pleasant evening.
'I've had a very successful year – with the change to the Crime and Policing Bill, becoming the first British parent to have a child's inquest quashed and redone over social media data not being looked at, and being one of the first British parents to sue TikTok in the US – this Pride of Britain Award is a personal 'well done' for everything that's been achieved.'
