Five students at the University of Cambridge have died as a result of suicide or suspected suicide over the past four months, prompting a rapid review by university authorities.
Prof Graham Virgo, the senior pro-vice-chancellor for education, said inquiries had found no links between the first four deaths of students who were all at different colleges. The fifth death happened since and is the subject of further review.
The university declined to identify those who have died, but media reports have named Daniel Fry, 20, a second-year historian at Homerton college, who died in March, and Yasmin Lajoie, 34, a first-year student of human, social, and political sciences at Hughes Hall who died in May.
All five deaths occurred between March and June this year – one in March, three in May and one last month. The university said so far one death has been confirmed as suicide by a coroner and the remaining four are being treated as suspected suicides.
In a statement, Virgo said: “We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of five students at the University of Cambridge over recent months. Our thoughts are very much with the families and friends of the students who have died.
“I want to reassure you that the university is taking this extremely seriously and is determined to work closely with our partners to help prevent future deaths.”
The university had set up a rapid incident response group, involving the affected colleges, public health experts from the local authority and the NHS, which had reviewed the first four deaths of students, Virgo said. “Following this review, a fifth student died which is now being reviewed using the same process.”
He said “no common cause or clear linkages” were evident from the first four deaths. “The coroner has ruled on one death, which has been confirmed as suicide, and the coroner has not yet begun inquiries into the other four.”
Virgo added: “Nothing is more important to the university and colleges than the safety of our students. We are committed to delivering a comprehensive set of actions that are designed to help keep students safe.”
These include increased investment in the university counselling service to reduce waiting times, dedicated wellbeing advisers to enable early identification of students in distress and training in suicide awareness for frontline staff.
“Sadly, across universities here in the UK, and internationally, we are seeing growing numbers of young people using counselling services and reporting struggles with their mental health.”
A statement from Cambridge University students’ union criticised the university’s suicide prevention plan, claiming it had been “diluted” after pushback from some colleges. “It’s wrong to speculate on the circumstances surrounding each student’s death, but we should not shy away from the fact that there is a student mental health crisis at Cambridge,” the statement said.
New figures published by the Office for National Statistics in May showed the suicide rate for higher education students in the academic year ending 2020 in England and Wales was three deaths per 100,000 students, the lowest rate in four years.
There have, however, been a number of high profile examples recently, including the death of Natasha Abrahart, 20, who suffered from severe social anxiety and was one of 11 University of Bristol students to die by suicide in a three-year period between 2016 and 2018.
Her parents successfully sued the University of Bristol under equality legislation and in May the university was ordered to pay £50,000 in damages after a senior judge ruled it had discriminated against her. The university has since applied for permission to appeal.
In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org
