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5th May 2023

Unis aren’t recording suicides. Meet the parents campaigning for change

Uni can be proper exciting. You get to make new mates, eat cereal any time of the day and even study down the pub, but it can also be a really tough time. There’s loneliness, exam stress and living away from home, it can all pile up. When student Harry couldn’t retake an exam, the stress was too much and he took his own life. Now, his parents are campaigning for a change in the law to help stop more student suicides.

In a recent study by The Tab, 41% of students said they felt stressed every day at uni. Exams and workload can take their toll on anyone, and exam stress would lead to Harry’s decision to take his own life.

Alice and Rupert describe Harry’s adventurous childhood in Cornwall. He was like lots of kids, curious and always looking for fun. It’s not easy for them to chat about this stuff, but they’re full of fond memories. Rupert says:

“He was the kind of child you’d find in the garden digging a hole to Australia. The kids would just run wild in the woods and Harry was quite mischievous. He once hid in someone’s car because he wanted to see where they lived. They were in the middle of Devon before they heard him in the back!”

It’s clear how proud the pair are of Harry, but when he started uni, their focus was on Harry being happy, not on his grades. But that didn’t stop Harry from putting pressure on himself to do well, so when a computer problem meant he wasn’t able to upload his paper, it was a real knock. Alice says:

“When Harry asked if he could retake the exam he was told he could but he’d be capped at 40%. I think it was at this point that his thoughts became a bit darker. I told Harry’s tutor I was very concerned about him and that he was very worried he wouldn’t get a good enough degree. At this point I was pretty desperate because he was so low.”

When Alice and Rupert stopped getting their usual emails and messages from Harry, they were worried. Alice says:

“We knew something was wrong because we didn't hear from him for about a month. If it wasn’t for Covid, we’d have got straight in the car and gone to him. We couldn’t get hold of Harry or his university, so at one point we got the caretaker to go and check he was okay.

“Eventually he got in touch and told us he hadn’t done well in his exams. He never really spoke about his marks, even when he got 100% in an exam, it was just his nature to keep that stuff to himself. When we eventually did see him he was incredibly thin and that was a clue that things weren’t going well. We went out for lunch and then brought him straight home.”

Alice and Rupert looked for ways to support Harry, but they were often met with the same answers or would wait weeks for replies. The pair felt like students who were struggling were falling through the cracks. Rupert says:

“Higher education students are in this gap where they’re no longer in school and they’re not yet in work. If anything goes wrong you’re told there’s no legal duty of care because students are classed as adults.

“If someone has a bad exam or something goes wrong, the university needs to be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘hi, are you okay?’. Because things start from very small problems and they build to be all consuming. Filling out a form to say you’ve got problems is a barrier. They should be able to chat to someone.

Tragically, Harry couldn’t see a way forward. He took his own life three years after starting the course he’d been so excited for. Alice and Rupert are still grieving their son and believe that his death was avoidable.

Alice was eager to find out how common it was for a student to take their own life and asked Harry’s university for the records of student suicides. She was shocked to discover that none of the 100 universities she wrote to kept a record of these numbers.

This was fuel for Harry’s parents to campaign for a change and they started the Harry’s Law petition. Alice and Rupert’s hope is that by recording students lost to suicide, universities will know how to look out for future students better. Rupert says:

“We decided to concentrate on the sharing of information because understanding what’s happening seems fundamental to developing better welfare policies. In The Tab’s survey 88% of students said they’d like access to this information, but universities believe knowing it could cause copycat incidents. We know however, that talking about suicide reduces the problem.”

Alice and Rupert hope that they can help future students from feeling the way Harry did. They’re working tirelessly to raise awareness about this stuff, not just through the petition, but also by going to speak with students about suicide and mental health. Alice says:

“I went to Harry’s university mental health day and chatted with a few of the students and they really opened up to me. They said it would make a huge difference if at least once a term they could see a pastoral tutor or someone to talk to. Surely that’s something that could help significantly, especially as campuses are so huge now.”

Rupert agrees that chatting can really help put things in perspective and offers students struggling with suicidal thoughts a way forward:

“It could be as simple as having a chat to someone on the phone, because if you’re miles from family, talking helps you rationalise your thoughts. You could be talking about something completely different, but you need to counter all the bad news in the world which can be really overwhelming when you’re away from home.”

Finally, Alice believes that talking about suicide and mental health before people head to uni really could help save lives. She says:

“Before university, you shouldn’t just have the money talk or the eat-your-veg talk, you should also have a suicide talk. Just to say, if you feel down, don’t do it, it’s too awful. I’m convinced if we’d done that for Harry he’d still be here today. Then he would have known we’d rather he was in a job that made him happy than in a bad place at university. I think talking to students about this could really make a difference to them.”

Losing someone by suicide can be incredibly difficult and isolating, but you’re not alone. You can find resources on support after suicide here.

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