A 20-year-old who lost her father to suicide has made an animated film in his honour.

Ciara Sims, from Woodford, released a video about the issue of male suicide in honour of her father, who took his own life three years ago next month.

The animation, ‘Man Up,’ highlights the shocking statistics around male suicide, which remains the biggest killer of men under 49 in the UK.

Between 1995 to 2014, 245 men took their lives in Redbridge alone, with 76,000 men across England and Wales.

Cllr Paul Canal, of Bridge ward, is a friend of the Sims family and paid tribute to Ciara, her brother Aneurin and mother Angela at a full council meeting last night.

The Conservative councillor asked council leader Cllr Jas Athwal what steps were being taken to address the issue of suicide locally.

He also asked if Cllr Athwal would consider publishing Ciara’s animation, made as part of her degree course, that highlights the facts around male suicide and the help and support that is available.

In response, Cllr Athwal outlined the council’s suicide prevention policy.

The policy states: “Over the next three years, we have set ourselves the ambition of significantly reducing the number of suicides in Redbridge. We will work to enable our residents to experience good mental health, support those who experience mental illness and support our workforce to be able to identify and respond to needs as early as possible.

“We have taken a life course approach to ensure that we capture risk factors and those at greatest needs at key stages of life.”

The council has vowed to maximise early contact to improve mental health and resilience; improve mental health and resilience via quality education; and provide good quality services and improve crisis response

The animation “Man Up” is available here until June 23 and can be downloaded and republished.

If you have been affected by the contents of this article, help and support is available via the Samaritans at www.samaritans.org or call 116 123.