I am posting (the longer version) on MN to you because I am looking for help and support in promoting the parliamentary petition which was launched late last year in memory of my son Harry.
He took his own life following a set of disastrous exam results in his third year at Exeter University where he was reading Physics with Astro-physics.
You may already have read in the press about Harry’s tragic suicide - it was much covered in the media when the inquest took place late last year. The petition calls for a new law - Harry’s Law - which addresses the hidden pandemic of student suicides sweeping our universities.
Our petition demands very simple actions costing little or nothing - it requires that once a coroner has determined that a student has taken his/her own life then that information would be forwarded to the relevant university so that records could now be kept. It is a fact that this does not happen now and so when my son took up his place at university we did not know that just the year before, in 2017 a student on the same course had taken his own life.
I attach here the details of the petition and I hope that you might consider signing it and sharing it with all your contacts. Specifically you may have family and friends who use social media such as instagram who may be able to encourage the student population to sign our petition.
At the moment our signature numbers are paltry (1,600 and we need at least 10,000 or preferably 100,000) and I feel that just a few people who use social media who might support us could turn our numbers around. The petition has to close on 8th May 2023.
I also attach a link to the front page (issuu.com/exeposeexeter/docs/binder_25-01-23) of the Exeter students’ newspaper of 25 January 2023, a Spectator article and The Times editorial about Harry and his suicide which demonstrate the level of support we have achieved from students and in the media. There are many more references on line to Harry and his struggle with people who should have helped him at Exeter University.
With warmest thanks to anyone who feels that they can sign the petition!
- Petition for Harry’s Law
- From The Spectator of issue 05 - November- 4th paragraph (www.spectator.co.uk/article/gretas-right-about-cop-being-useless)
"Harry Armstrong Evans was a student at Exeter University when he killed himself. The coroner at his inquest criticised the university for not responding to his ‘cry for help’. He had sent an email about his poor state of mind after bad exam results, but no one from the university ever spoke to him about this or replied substantively to an anxious voicemail from his mother. Harry’s parents complain that universities do not have a duty of care towards their students. Troubled students fall through this gap. Since the age of majority was reduced from 21 to 18 half a century ago, universities have not been in loco parentis, so they have become careless about students. At the same time, parents have no right to know anything about their student children because they are, in law, adults. Their child could be in utter despair and yet the university (if it knew, which it often does not) could tell them nothing without the child’s consent. Many students, especially those leaving home for the first time, are much more like children than adults. For their own sake, parliament should recognise this and give all full-time students under 21 the status of children. “
- The Times Editorial
The Times view on student suicides: Harry’s Law
Universities should be legally required to disclose how many of their intake have taken their own lives
No experience is more traumatic for a parent than the death of a child, and for that death to be self-inflicted compounds the tragedy. Yesterday Rupert Armstrong Evans paid moving tribute to his son Harry, an undergraduate at Exeter University, who was found dead at home in the summer a few months after failing an exam. He was speaking after the inquest, at which the coroner criticised the university for failing Harry amid a mental health crisis, and for a “catalogue of missed opportunities coupled with systems failings”.
These comments give weight to a campaign initiated by Mr Armstrong Evans to compel universities to publish the number of suicides among their students. Under such legislation, dubbed “Harry’s law”, coroners’ courts would be obliged to tell universities when the suicide of an enrolled student is registered, and universities would be required to publish annually a record of student suicides. Mr Armstrong Evans is right to press for this. No parent should have to undergo the torment he has suffered, and his proposals might have a salutary effect on universities in impressing upon them an obligation to safeguard students’ mental health.
There were more than 5,000 deaths due to suicide in England and Wales in 2020, including an estimated 64 students. But these are only estimates, as official records are lacking; hence the pressure for mandatory reporting. And while every victim of suicide is unique, there are some recurring patterns in the data. Young men are more likely to take their own lives than young women, and students who leave home for the first time may be especially vulnerable.
It has long been this way. In his pioneering study of suicide more than 120 years ago, the social theorist Émile Durkheim noted that populations with higher levels of education were more prone to suicide. The questioning spirit of young students may make them susceptible to harsh self-criticism and despair when they believe they are falling short. This appears to have been the case with Harry and other gifted students at UK universities whose suicides have been recorded in recent years.
Moreover, depressive disorder is the most significant contributor to suicides among young people. This is not a matter of just feeling sad, as everyone does sometimes: it is a clinical illness born of distorted thinking, which stimulates feelings of excessive guilt and worthlessness. There are validated psychological and pharmacological treatments for addressing mood disorders. Universities fail in a duty of care to their students if they skimp on the availability of trained counsellors for those who are struggling emotionally. Universities UK, the body representing higher education, has in recent weeks recommended that universities contact family members or carers if they have concerns about the mental health of a student. It is perplexing that such guidance needs to be given, but it does and it is a problem that it is merely advisory rather than binding. Universities have a duty of care and safety, but not specifically a legal framework regarding students’ mental health. The evidence suggests that some institutions have followed an unduly legalistic approach of requiring a student to first give permission for their loved ones to be contacted.
This sort of defensiveness will lead to further tragedies. Universities should have no room for manoeuvre in disclosing their mental health procedures. Harry’s law, if enacted, could save lives.