The parents of a Bristol University student who took her own life in April 2018 have slammed a Government decision not to tighten up the law requiring universities to have a legal duty of care for their students. Natasha Abrahart's parents said the Government was ‘ducking the issue’, after it dropped the idea of writing into law a requirement that universities had a legal duty to ensure the welfare of their students.
Margaret and Robert Abrahart, and other parents of students who have taken their own lives at British universities, are now campaigning for 100,000 people to sign a petition in the next five weeks, to force MPs to debate the issue in Parliament. The campaign launched this week is called ‘For the 100’, and references an estimation that around 100 university students take their own life every year in the UK.
Responding to the call from the Abraharts and parents like them who have lost children at university, the Department for Education rebuffed the call for a new law. A spokesperson said last week: “Higher Education providers do have a general duty of care to deliver educational and pastoral services to the standard of an ordinarily competent institution.
Read more: Parents call for law change after Bristol student's death
"In carrying out these services, they are expected to act reasonably to protect the health, safety and welfare of their students. This can be summed up as providers owing a duty of care to not cause harm to their students through the university’s own actions.” The Government’s response has drawn criticism from the Abraharts, who said it is ‘meaningless’ in the absence of a commitment to establish a statutory duty of care.
Prof Abrahart, 66, a retired university lecturer, said: “The Government’s response appears to be an attempt at ducking the issue, and it does nothing to inform the debate about how the universities should keep students safe.
“The judge in Natasha’s case refused to recognise a duty of care on universities to take reasonable care for the wellbeing, health and safety of its students, and to avoid causing them psychiatric injury through methods of teaching for example,” he added.
“The response from the Department for Education ignores this entirely. If the Government agrees with us that students deserve the protection of a legal duty of care then it should introduce a bill in Parliament rather than making bland statements. Such a duty should cover not only negligent acts by universities but also negligent failures to act, which the Government’s statement also ignores,” he said.
Natasha was just 20 when she took her own life on the day she was due to give a presentation in a large lecture theatre. She was suffering from acute anxiety disorder and told her lecturers that she couldn’t face making the presentation.
In May last year, a senior judge ruled the University of Bristol had breached the Equality Act by failing to make proper adjustments for Natasha’s condition, and ordered the university to pay compensation to her parents. Last October, her parents helped launch a petition and campaign from the LEARN Network to get the Government to introduce a legal duty of care for universities over their students.
Around 15,000 people have signed it, but they needed 100,000 to sign it by mid-March. “I fear this response was made in the hope that we would go away”, said Margaret, 61, a retired psychological wellbeing practitioner.
“We and the other members of The LEARN Network will not go away until we have improved the protections for vulnerable university students. We owe it to Natasha, and to all the others who have died far too young, to make sure their deaths were not in vain.”
At the time of the judge's ruling last year, Bristol University said it remained "deeply sorry for the family's loss" and that it was not contesting the damages awarded by the judge, but "staff are primarily educators, not healthcare professionals" and may not know a student has a disability, especially if it has not been diagnosed.
The statement continued: "We are deeply concerned by the increase of mental health issues amongst our young people nationally, and are determined to do our very best to support any student who is struggling with their mental health through the provision of a wide range of services. At the same time, it is important that students and their families are clear on what universities can and cannot do, and that students receive appropriate specialist care under the NHS should they need it."
Gus Silverman, the Bristol human rights lawyer at Irwin Mitchell who represented Robert and Margaret, as well as the families of other students who have taken their lives, said: “Natasha’s parents were able to get some measure of justice because the particular requirements of the Equality Act were met in Natasha’s case.
"However, unless they are able to establish the existence of a duty of care in negligence many families and students will find it very difficult to hold universities accountable through the courts, including where a death has tragically occurred.
“The Government now has an opportunity to clearly define in statute the legal duties owed by universities to students. Failing to seize this opportunity risks preventing access to justice through the courts,” he added.
