Coroner raps university for failing to help tragic student
A UNIVERSITY has been criticised at an inquest for ignoring a student’s “cry for help” weeks before he took his own life.
Harry Armstrong Evans, studying physics and astrophysics at the University of Exeter, died in June 2021 at home in Launceston, Cornwall.
The 21-year-old had failed some exams and had been struggling with isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown, it was claimed.
But assistant coroner Guy Davies said there was a “total absence of personal engagement” from the university towards Harry and there had been a “catalogue of missed opportunities along with system failures”.
Alerted
Harry, less than a month before he died, had emailed his tutor and the wellbeing service detailing his declining mental health, which he said had affected his exam performance.
Mr Davies told Cornwall Coroner’s Court this did not prompt any direct engagement between the university and Harry or his parents, Rupert and Alice Armstrong Evans.
His mother had called lecturers but failed to get a reaction allegedly due to computer failings. University staff claimed there was nothing in what Harry told them that alerted them that he was in an immediate crisis.
Mark Sawyer, head of the wellbeing service, said there were “no obvious red flags to us” and his tutor Professor Matthew Browning said he “tried at all times to support Harry”.
But Mr Davies insisted the university had a “safeguarding obligation” to students and was “best placed for first response to a mental health crisis”.
Recording a conclusion of suicide, he said he would write to the university highlighting concerns and questioning whether the wellbeing service was “fit for purpose”.
After yesterday’s inquest, the student’s parents called for a “Harry Law” to make sure universities had a duty of care to students.
Rupert and Alice said: “Harry’s passing is made all the more tragic because it was entirely avoidable.
“Even our prisons are obliged to provide a duty of care to murderers. This absence of responsibility comes at a time when our children are under the most extraordinary amount of mental and academic pressure.
“Covid-19 may be under control but a silent student suicide pandemic grips higher education institutions.
“For years, universities have preferred to turn a blind eye to deaths of our sons and our daughters in their care.” Mike Shore-Nye, registrar at the
University of Exeter, said: “We are acutely aware of the mental health challenges for young people.
“We have invested significantly in student welfare and
wellbeing support.”