Inquiry into 5 suspected suicides at Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE University has launched a review into student welfare after five suspected suicides over a four-month period.

The deaths, which took place between March and June, include history undergraduate Daniel Fry, 20, and human, social and political sciences student Yasmin Lajoie, 34.

Senior pro-vice-chancellor Professor Graham Virgo said the tragedies had ‘distressed the whole of the university community’. He added: ‘We are engaging very carefully with the whole student population, with professionals within the university and outside, to get a better understanding of what might be going on.’

Only one death has been confirmed as suicide so far, with the other four under investigation.

Mr Fry, from Belfast, was ‘on course to finish as one of the most accomplished students in his year’, his inquest heard.

Cambridgeshire assistant coroner Simon Milburn said there was ‘absolutely no indication that he was struggling’ before his death in March.

Miss Lajoie, pictured, described as a ‘brilliant’ and ‘vibrant’ young woman, was one of three students to die in May. The Hughes Hall student, from Hackney, east London, who had borderline personality disorder, had been left ‘devastated and angry’ after the suicide of a friend 12 days earlier.

The university’s review, carried out alongside police, the local ambulance service and the coroner, is looking at ‘what the lessons [are] that we can learn’, Professor Virgo said.

Four Cambridge students committed suicide in the four years to 2020-21, with another suspected.

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