A PAIR of teenage girls have admitted they were responsible for a hoax suicide report that duped hundreds of people.

News of the ‘death’ of a 16-year-old called Jaydon Rothwell spread throughout Blackburn late last week.

A tribute page on social network website Facebook was joined by more than 2,000 people with hundreds posting tribute comments.

Almost all were from strangers who had been moved to comment by the apparent tragic death of a local boy following an overdose of mephedrone and vodka.

But police were baffled as they had no knowledge of the teenager or his death.

Over the weekend, officers traced two teenage girls from Blackburn who had set up the site.

They admitted it was a prank that had got out of hand.

The girls had set up a Facebook page in the name of Jaydon Rothwell and then used it to befriend a pal of theirs, police said.

Unwittingly the girl struck up a relationship with ‘Jaydon’ - and was devastated to hear he had 'died'.

It is not clear whether this girl, or those responsible for the hoax, set up the Jaydon Rothwell RIP page which attracted hundreds of condolence messages as word spread across town.

Police Inspector Ilyas Mohmed said they were considering whether to take any action against the girls.

He said: “We have worked extensively on this inquiry and this has led to a lot of officers’ time being wasted.

“We find these actions to be unacceptable and this kind of prank will not be tolerated.

"We will take action against anyone involved in this sort of behaviour in future.”

Insp Mohmed said the true identity of the person the girls claimed was Jaydon Rothwell in the Facebook profile picture was not known.