The father of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish girl who killed herself after being bullied at an American high school, spoke publicly last week for the first time since her death.

Jeremy Prince, who stayed at home in Clare when his wife and daughter moved to Massachusetts, said he wished to forgive the six teenagers who are awaiting trial on serious criminal charges for bullying Phoebe in the lead up to her death.

Speaking to the journalist Emily Bazelon who has reported on the case for the online magazine Slate.com, Prince appealed for leniency in the trials of the teenagers. "If someone is punished disproportionately to what they've done, that would be wrong," he said. "There are levels of culpability among the kids. You want to see the law acknowledged, and reasonable penalties, but without making an example of them. You want to take their ages into account. There will always be younger ones who go with the flow and join in."

Prince's standpoint is at odds with the perception that the Prince family want to see those who bullied Phoebe imprisoned.

"I'd dearly like to see admission and contrition, so that I could forgive," Prince told the reporter in a phone call. "If they confessed to the court and said they were sorry, I'd appeal to the court for total leniency. You can go two ways: you can look to the court for revenge or you can look for leniency. The latter path is mine."

Six teenagers, including ex-boyfriend Sean Mulveyhill, involved in bullying Phoebe face a series of criminal charges including stalking, statutory rape, criminal harassment and civil rights violation with bodily injury. The latter charge holds a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. The teenager killed herself following a spate of bullying at South Hadley high school, but last week, a more complex story of her underlying mental health problems emerged, including details of a previous possible suicide attempt and self-harm. Phoebe's mother has yet to speak to the press, but her aunt Eileen Moore criticised Bazelon's reporting on the teenager's personal issues, telling the Boston Herald that "it resurfaced everything... We relive it."

The death of Phoebe Prince and its aftermath continues to grab headlines and airtime in America, with various news outlets arguing over what consequences her alleged bullies should face, as well as prompting discussions on aggressive high school environments and cyber bullying. Phoebe moved to the east coast of the US in September last year and hanged herself in January this year. Six teenagers from the school she was attending who allegedly tormented her with verbal slurs and bullying Facebook comments are facing the initial proceedings of their trial in September.