A teenager with 'so much to live for' was found dead on railway tracks after going missing at college during a meeting about her mental health. Holly Marie Egan, 17, had been at Blackpool Sixth Form College where she had revealed suicidal thoughts and self harm to a member of staff before disappearing late in the afternoon, LancsLive reports.
She was later found on the train tracks near Layton railway station in Blackpool on January 27 this year after she was hit by a Northern Rail train heading from Blackpool North. An inquest, which reconvened at Blackpool Town Hall on Thursday (October 27) and concluded on Friday (October 28), heard how the driver, who had conducted a brake check previously, said they felt the train travelling at around 40mph strike a female at around 6.45pm.
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The inquest heard how the driver saw a blonde female with pigtails in her hair before the collision. The matter was immediately reported, the train stopped, and emergency services called but sadly, Holly could not be saved by paramedics.
The inquest heard how Holly had been at Blackpool Sixth Form College where she had revealed suicidal thoughts and self harm to a member of staff before disappearing late on the afternoon of her death. Previously the same day, Holly had approached the pastoral service at the college and asked to speak with her pastoral mentor, Steve Beesley, at a quarter past midday on the day of her death.
But since Mr Beesley, who had 180 students on his watch, was not available at that time, it was agreed he would see her at 2 o’clock, when they had a group session. However, at the end of that session, Mr Beesley managed to speak briefly with her but had another class afterwards, and tried to find another member of staff to speak to her. He told the hearing: “She obviously wanted to say something, so I said, just come to the next session, so she came to that.”
After the second session ended at around 3.50pm and the pair were able to talk, Holly told Mr Beesley that she had been self harming the previous night, and that she was feeling suicidal. It was agreed that Mr Beesley would call Holly’s mum and ask her to attend the college. Mr Beesley told the hearing: “She seemed calm, like, I’m ready to tackle my mental health.”
The coroner asked him: “Would it have been appropriate to have called emergency services regardless?” However, the teacher said that decision would be a matter for the safeguarding team at college.
Holly then told Mr Beesley that she felt sick, at around 4.35pm, so she left the room to go to the toilet, after being asked to leave her bag behind as her teacher thought it would mean she would return. Yet when a female member of staff went to look for her, Holly was not in the toilets, so the alarm was raised and the search began at a quarter to five.
Holly’s mum was called just after 5pm and police were alerted at 5.50pm, arriving at 6.17pm. CCTV footage showed she had left at 4.43pm. Pointing out that an hour and five minutes passed from when Holly had been found not to be in the toilet to when police were called, the Assistant Coroner asked the teacher: “Was there anything else in terms of the search that could have been done?”
There was nothing else, the teacher said. When asked if there was any indication of where she could have gone, he said the toilets were next to the office where they had been, there was no other obvious exit out of college and Holly would have had to pass a window of the office to get to the main entrance. Assistant principal Steve Ormson explained, at the end of the first day of the hearing: “When Holly left to go to the toilet, the only Holly could have got to the exit was passing the window and they didn’t see that, so their assumption was that Holly was in college, so they sent out a search.”
Mr Steve Heyes-Brown, one of two assistant heads of student services, told the hearing how on the afternoon of Holly’s death, Holly had asked to speak to his colleague, Steve Beesley, who then said Holly had revealed suicidal thoughts. However, Mr Heyes-Brown had to leave for a dental appointment, so a member of the safeguarding team was approached, who also subsequently had to leave as well due to childcare issues, so the matter was passed to the head of student services. When asked if there was any more contact on the matter, Mr Heyes-Brown said he got a message saying that person had subsequently also had to leave.
The Coroner asked Mr Heyes-Brown if there was any college policy dealing with students who leave college, to which the teacher replied it would be dealt with as a safeguarding issue. Mr Cousins persisted: “Where in this policy would I find the college procedure for dealing with this?
Mr Heyes-Brown replied: “It would be within the safeguarding policy - whether it mentions absconding from college, I’m not entirely sure. “ However, changes made at college since Holly’s death involved referrals to a college counselling service, with earlier triage and access to a range of services including charities, support workers, voluntary services, self help services and drop in services, he added. Staff completed training in safeguarding, and suicide prevention training had been given as well.
A former student at Cardinal Allen Catholic High School in Blackpool, Holly had started Blackpool Sixth Form College in September 2021, where staff described her as a quiet, pleasant student, who had been flagged up as a priority for the pastoral service after it was noted that she was struggling with friendship groups, and she had been eating in the toilets. Support had been offered to help her integrate better, such as a quiet area in the library, a student librarian position as well as college counselling, and Holly was also known to attend an NHS mental health referral service outside of college.
However, the court heard how Holly had been known to mental health services since the age of 15 and had been diagnosed with depressive disorder, receiving a range of treatments from CAMHS, including an inpatient admission to a children’s centre based in Heysham in May 2020. She engaged well with the treatment whilst an inpatient, and continued to receive community level care afterwards, but staff at CAMHS said she struggled to open up and talk about her feelings. This, and the fact that her case worker was due to leave, prompted a decision to be made with Holly for her to be discharged in February 2021, almost a year before she died, with her GP subsequently being contacted and a four week check to follow.
The lockdown did not significantly affect her treatment, but it did affect Holly, since doctors said she felt cut off from friends and it left her without structure and a routine. Holly did not meet the threshold for the Mental Health Act to be invoked, which would have meant she could be forced to engage with CAMHS, the hearing heard, but since Holly’s death, a thorough investigation had taken place and there were now enhanced risk assessments, discharge check lists and multi agency meetings for discharge plans at the service.
Recording a medical cause of death as multiple injuries and a cause of death as suicide, Assistant Coroner Andrew Cousins said: “It transpired that Holly had walked to Layton Railway Station and walked onto the railway line. At approximately 6.45pm, a northern rail service from Blackpool North collided with Holly, causing her fatal injuries.”
Although he told the hearing that the threshold was not crossed for any provision of future deaths report to be recorded, and that the inquest was not seeking to apportion blame, he promised to write to Blackpool Sixth Form College asking them if their policy on missing students could be reviewed. However, he added: “I remind myself that this letter is not a criticism. Having reviewed the evidence in this case it may well be an opportunity for pastoral policy in relation to the section on missing students to be reviewed."
He added: “I would like to place on record my condolences to all of Holly’s family in this case…. To have lost Holly in such such tragic circumstances at such a young age is tragic, particularly when someone has so much of their life ahead of them to live for.”
Holly's devastated father, Kristopher Waldram, attended both days, while Holly’s grieving grandmother, Valerie Egan, said in a statement read out at the start of the hearing: ”Please don’t let Holly’s memory be defined by this inquest and what is said today. There was so much more to Holly and everybody that knew her was so lucky to have had her in their lives.
“She had a beautiful, kind soul, and was funny, kind, caring and loving. We have so many wonderful memories of Holly which nobody can take away. She filled our lives with happiness and gave us 17 years of joy, laughter and love and for that we are grateful. Holly was our world and will stay in our hearts forever and will never, ever be forgotten .Our lives will never be the same without her.”
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