‘Ruth had big ideas’: girl who died in psychiatric care was failed by system, say parents

Huntercombe hospital where Ruth Szymankiewicz died has since closed. Photograph: Maureen McLean/Alamy

She was loving, sporty and bright. At the start of Ruth Szymankiewicz’s inquest her parents, Kate and Mark, a GP and a surgeon, described her passion for life, for adventure, for justice.

“Ruth was always thinking about making the world a better place,” they said in a pen portrait of the teenager. “She had big ideas.”