Caitlyn, a gifted and autistic pupil, killed herself because she couldn't face her first detention. Her father, who's also autistic, says in a haunting interview: 'Just because I'm not visibly emotional, doesn't mean I'm grieving any less'

Little more than a year ago, banker Jonathan Scott-Lee was preparing to move from Hong Kong to Toronto to oversee the completion of the $13.5 billion sale of HSBC Canada, when he received a phone call from the headmistress at Britain's leading girls' boarding school, Wycombe Abbey.

His wondrously talented 16-year-old daughter Caitlyn had taken her own life.

Her body was found shortly before midnight in a secluded backstage room in the performing arts centre where she 'very much loved' to work behind the scenes. Jonathan believes it was either 'planned or poetic' that Caitlyn, his brilliant autistic daughter who suffered with stage fright, decided to end her life there.

For he knows from entries in her 300-page diary found after her death that, as she wrote, 'Musical theatre makes me so happy. I've never found something I've loved this much.'

He also knows from his daughter's neat, joined-up handwriting that she intended to take her life that night, preferring to die rather than attend her first detention, which was handed out the previous term and had weighed heavily upon her mind throughout the Easter break.

'I hope this is my last diary entry. I want to kill myself tomorrow,' she wrote. 'I was feeling better today until this evening when [I was told] I have the detention. Today I felt better because I was under some stupid false hope that it wouldn't happen this weekend.'

After addressing a few friends individually, the heart-breaking entry continues: 'To all my other friends: I'm sorry I can't name you all. I need to sleep. Thank you for sticking it out and still trying to help me even when I am the most soul-draining pessimist to be around. You are all the ones who I look forward to seeing and have kept me sane through everything. Good luck with everything.'

The diary, which Jonathan says began in 2018 with such 'charming naivety' at the start of her first term at the £44,000-a-year school in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, ends with a single word, 'Goodbye.'

The entries in her diary are the words of an extremely bright, engaging teenager who thinks deeply about things.

'As a ten-year-old Caitlyn chose to study hard because she herself wanted to go to boarding school,' he says. 'She chose Wycombe Abbey. She enjoyed the school very much, particularly the 200 acres of wooded grounds.

'She would go to the lake with her best friend just to watch and feed the birds. I heard about charming moments when they would stand side by side and not say a word — just be. Imagine. I don't think there are many friendships like that.'

Last month, an inquest at Beaconsfield Coroner's Court into Caitlyn's death heard that, weeks before taking her life on April 22, she was referred to a mental health nurse by her GP after she became overwhelmed with anxiety about the detention.

It was recommended she should be given therapy in May after she spoke about her suicidal thoughts during a telephone assessment. She took her life days before the therapy was due to begin.

Senior coroner Crispin Butler also heard Caitlyn, a gifted musician, disappeared from school two days after being given the detention on March 19, when she was due to play at a concert at Eton College.

In her diary she wrote, 'F*** the school. Running away was the best cry out for help I could give and you responded with, we'd normally punish you but we know you're already getting punished. Safeguarding my ass.'

Nonetheless, the coroner concluded there was 'no evidence' anything would have helped the school prevent her from taking her life.

Jonathan, 42, feels no anger. There are no 'shooting arrows at someone to blame. None of that will bring Caitlyn back,' he says with a charming, rational logic that defines this thoroughly kind, gentle man who, like his daughter, is autistic.

There is little obvious emotion. No tears. But that doesn't mean he doesn't feel things. He does, intensely, but internally.

Indeed, throughout this interview at a spacious Airbnb where he is spending precious time with his seven-year-old youngest daughter, who lives with her sister, 14, and his ex-wife in Windsor, he fiddles constantly with a signet ring on the little finger of his right hand. Caitlyn's name is engraved inside, beside a small hole where a lock of her hair is placed.

This is the first time Jonathan has spoken at length about his daughter's suicide and shared pages of her diary, many entries of which, particularly those written in her early years at Wycombe Abbey, he reads with 'fondness'.

Later he will fly to Malaysia to take up his new position in charge of operations for HSBC but, he tells me, he 'resolved early on to honour Caitlyn by doing the best with each day that lies ahead'.

An ambassador for neurodiversity at HSBC, he wants to raise awareness about the one-in-three children who are neurodiverse by sharing his daughter's story.

'Most people would struggle to fathom that an individual would rather take their life than take a detention, but I wonder whether a lot of people who die by suicide don't actually want to die. They just want the pain to stop,' he says.

The detention was handed down after vodka and a tattoo kit were found in Caitlyn's music locker. There are no other references to alcohol in her diary, but Jonathan appreciates the detention was justified.

'I'm unconvinced we fully understand the extent to which autism affected her decision,' he says. 'I wonder whether it's a pattern worth exploring.' Jonathan is now supporting experts in autism to prevent further tragedies.

'Just because I'm not emotional doesn't mean I'm any less sad, but what I choose to do with that emotion is to craft a positive future rather than becoming crushed by it. Had Caitlyn understood the potential blast radius of pain this [her death] would cause, I'm not sure she would have continued with what she had planned, but we can only look forward and keep going. I don't know how else to be.'

Jonathan, you know within minutes of meeting him, loved his daughter deeply. So much so that, soon after her birth, he started collecting photos and videos of her and 'noting ideas for a father of the bride speech'.

Following her death, he found that old draft and 'started rewording it into a eulogy', speaking poignantly about his daughter's love of music, nature, photography, her family, including her two younger sisters, and those she knew at Wycombe Abbey.

He also spoke about the full life she had led: obtaining her scuba diving licence aged 10, golf lessons and tennis tournaments, camping in the Brecon Beacons, helicopter rides across glaciers in New Zealand, exploring the Australian outback in a camper van and active volcanos in Iceland, skiing across Japan, horse-riding lessons in Malaysia, hiking the Great Wall of China and hunting rifle marksmanship.

'I end this eulogy by asking you all today on behalf of Caitlyn: will you commit to honour Caitlyn by living your life to the full?' he said at her deeply moving funeral last year. 'Absolutely you must take time to mourn today and then heal for tomorrow so that you can all thrive here on Earth.

'Will all of you continue to tell Caitlyn's story? She needs you to tell her story. As you live each day you will tell Caitlyn's story and your life will be the most eloquent tribute to my daughter.'

Recalling that dark day, Jonathan was woken early on the Saturday morning by the phone call from his daughter's headmistress in Britain, which is seven hours behind Hong Kong.

'It's one of those moments you just remember precisely where you were, similar to 9/11 and Princess Diana's death,' he says. 'I was actually packing up my home on the way to Toronto so was surrounded by boxes. It must have been 6 or 7am.

'There were some missed calls and then the school eventually got through. It would have been around midnight on the Friday there [in Britain]. I was awoken to the voice of the headmistress sharing the news Caitlyn had died.

'What she said is a blur but I remember the sentiment and the voice being kind and composed, sharing that Caitlyn had gone missing, that she was found but she had died.

'I remember having to ask, 'Can I just confirm you're saying my eldest daughter Caitlyn Scott-Lee has died?' The headmistress confirmed it.

'I don't remember much more about the conversation. I just remember being surrounded by all these relocation boxes and thinking, 'I need to finish this packing.' The movers were coming three days later.'

Was he, perhaps, in shock?

'I wonder whether I was shocked or just pragmatic. I simply had to get stuff done. I called my two bosses, because I knew the crucial importance of this transaction and we had to find someone to take over.

'Then I called my brother and parents to let them know. They kept asking me to repeat it. I had to confirm it a few times.

'I focused on what needed to be done such as asking my now fiancé to help me finish packing. I needed to book a one-way flight to the UK, not knowing when I would return. It wasn't until I got on the plane — a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Heathrow — and sat down that the tears first came. That must have been 48 hours after I heard the news.'

Jonathan remembers the days after arriving in London as 'a blur'.

'A lot of different things needed to happen,' he says. 'The doctor had to do a post-mortem and the funeral preparations needed to be made. Between my ex-wife and I [they separated in 2021] we worked on it.

'It's very peculiar going through that process of deciding whether you're going to have a wooden casket or a bamboo one. Who's on the guestlist? How much catering is required? Do you want a horse-drawn carriage? Do you want a black horse or a white horse?

'Going through those steps feels very much like you're having to plan for an official event similar to a wedding without really wanting to make those decisions. Can you imagine making such choices? My hope is most people never have to go through that process.'

He takes off his signet ring and rubs it gently between his finger and thumb.

'I remember at the time looking at the funeral director's price list wondering why a black horse — £1,050 — was cheaper than a white horse — £1,350. Was it horse racism? There are those small, humorous peculiarities you kind of dwell on.'

Jonathan was diagnosed with autism two years before his daughter, in 2020.

'Caitlyn was simply my daughter so, for me, no label mattered, including autism. I think having a confirmed diagnosis of autism brought a peace to her in so much as she could start to understand why she enjoyed certain things or preferred things a certain way. For example, how she was so passionate about her music or why order and structure was important to her.'

The last text Caitlyn sent her father was a copy of her GSCE timetable. She didn't live to sit those GSCEs but ten equivalent A-grades (three grade 7s and the remainder grades 8 and 9) were calculated posthumously.

Jonathan would happily have held his daughter's hand in place of that sheet of paper recording those exemplary grades.

'I always wanted to be a very involved and responsible father. I tried my best not to mollycoddle my children but to give them opportunities to experiment and thrive in life. I often feel a sense of regret that, in spite of the best I did, my eldest is not here.

'She chose a different path. As her father, I first and foremost shoulder that entire responsibility. If there's anyone to blame, it is me.'

Following the post-mortem, Jonathan saw his daughter at a chapel of rest in Windsor. He is a Christian who has leant heavily upon his faith in the past year.

'I checked with some pastors as to whether one gets into heaven following a suicide, but being a Protestant Anglican all is well,' he says.

'When I saw Caitlyn for the first and last time in the Chapel of Rest it was just her and me. It was very, very peaceful. She was very still, almost as though she was sleeping, with her small white rabbit teddy bear. It struck me that the casket was adult size and not child size. I don't know why I assumed it would be, but I did.

'I sat next to her and there was a bible beside her. I remember praying the words, 'Where two or more are gathered you are in our midst', but does that still count when only Caitlyn's body is here?'

He leans forward in his chair and puts his hands together as if in prayer now. You sense it is not easy for this deeply caring man to remember those last moments with Caitlyn. I tell him I am sorry for asking about them.

'There's nothing to be sorry about. I'm so grateful you've taken the time to come over and talk about it,' he says with a generosity of spirit that takes your breath away.

He offers me some raspberries and brioches he has thoughtfully prepared before this interview. He would like his youngest daughter to join us, but she's playing contentedly with some toys upstairs.

'One of my earliest challenges in the past year has been how I introduce myself to new people,' he says. 'I don't know what tense to use and whether to say, 'Hi, I'm Jonathan, I have three daughters,' Or, 'I had three daughters.'

'So, I resolved to say, 'I have three daughters, one is in Heaven and two are in Windsor.' That's how I reconciled it, but it's small moments like that that you catch yourself and realise what's happened.

'It's not things I miss, it's more when I suddenly see other people do things I can't do. I'll see a father and daughter having lunch together and I'll just think, 'Oh, I can't do that with Caitlyn anymore,' Or, 'I can't go on holiday with her.' It's not so much the past I dwell on, it's more of the present.

'David Cameron's daughter used to go to the same school as Caitlyn. I remember when his son [Ivan] died, reading a really good description of what you describe as a process of grief: that it is actually the process of reconciling an existing reality against an anticipated future.

'Perhaps me redrafting my father of the bride speech into a eulogy is an example of that — reconciling the future I had envisaged with a new reality I had to process.'

Many of the photos Jonathan collected for that future wedding day are now in a video entitled Caitlyn's Pen Portrait, set to the soundtrack of Scars Of Heaven, the Christian song by Casting Crowns that explores love, loss and redemption.

The lyrics begin, 'If I had only known the last time would be the last time / I would've put off all the things I had to do / I would've stayed a little longer, held on a little tighter / Now what I'd give for one more day with you.'

He showed that pen portrait at the inquest as he set out to tell Caitlyn's story. There was barely a dry eye in the room and the coroner had to adjourn the proceedings to allow those present to compose themselves.

'There is a shock to the suddenness and unexpected nature of the way Caitlyn died, but we can't change the past so it doesn't matter how she died,' he says. 'What matters is how we live forward, whilst honouring our loved ones.

'For me, I have resolved that I will go to sleep each night, wake up the next morning and do the very best with each day that lies ahead — and I'll keep doing that for the rest of my life in honour of my daughter.' Amen.

Jonathan has partnered with Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, the UK's leading expert in autism at the University of Cambridge, to raise awareness of The Autism Centre of Excellence. autismcentreofexcellence.org/in-memory

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