When Harry’s parents, Alice and Rupert, stumble upon something in their Cornish watermill home, they at first think their son has left his big shoes lying around, before they remember he’s gone. “We miss Harry every second of every day,” said Alice, 63, a shipping consultant. “We wondered if we should move out of here, but we’d really miss the feel of Harry, especially in his room which is still full of computer paraphernalia.” Rupert, 72, an inventor and pioneer in renewable energy, said: “He was a bright, happy young man who had an inquisitive mind and not a hateful bone in his body. Unfortunately, we all miss him.” Harry Armstrong Evans. Photo: Courtesy of the family Last June, aged 21, Harry, a physics and astrophysics student at the University of Exeter, took his own life six months after a disastrous series of exams. In the weeks before his death, his family saw his mental health deteriorating and sought help from the university. Harry himself told academic and welfare staff that he was doing so badly after being left horribly isolated in his student flat during the Covid lockdown and asked for help. But the family feel the Russell Group university let Harry down. “I still can’t forgive them,” Alice said. “I can’t forgive them for not seeing that Harry’s marks had fallen so far and he needed help. He probably felt like it was the end of the world.” Describing his son as “a geek in the best possible way”, Rupert said: “He was conscientious and didn’t like to fail, so his results were devastating.” Harry’s sister Freddie, 27, who works for an energy surveying firm, said: ‘They didn’t take what Harry was going through seriously. They took mum out and couldn’t get them to communicate properly with Harry. They didn’t escalate it. They didn’t seem to feel responsible.” After attending primary school in Launceston, Cornwall, Harry won a scholarship to attend Winchester College in Hampshire, where he boarded between the ages of 13 and 18. He was a rower and a chess player and very intelligent. After school he was offered places at the universities of Bristol, Bath and Exeter. “Exeter was nice and tight,” Rupert said. “He did well in his exams, drove to 2:1 or better. Then came the lockdowns – total disaster.” “I have nightmares about how long he was alone,” Alice said. In January 2021, Harry’s results fell off the cliff, with marks as low as 21%. The university accepts his fall was “unusual”. Harry believed they had ruined his chances of going on to graduate school and stopped communicating with his family. They were so worried that in February Archie’s older brother called his student accommodation and had a doorman knock on his door to check he was still alive. Harry opened the door. “Eventually we went to see Harry and brought him home,” Alice said. “I was worried. He was thin. I thought I’d better get in touch with the welfare people.” On May 7, 2021 – seven weeks before he died – Alice called the university’s wellness team and left a message saying her son was “not in a good place mentally.” The inquest into Harry’s death heard that a welfare officer pressed the wrong button on the computer system and accidentally closed the case. “It never occurred to me that anyone would lose the information,” Alice said. He called a fortnight later, but again no red flags were raised. “I think they thought ‘stupid mother’ and didn’t pay much attention.” On May 28, Harry sent an email to his academic and pastoral tutor and welfare team explaining that isolation during the pandemic, along with family difficulties, had affected his mental health. The teacher emailed Harry and offered to meet, but his family believe that at the time Harry was found dead on June 24 in a home at home, no one from the university had spoken to him directly. Alice said: “Exeter rang and offered their condolences over the phone. I asked if they had lost any other students. They just didn’t answer the question. I realized that it is so hard to get the truth from any university about suicides. Sometimes we feel like we live in Russia.” They found that 11 students at the university are believed to have taken their own lives in the past six years, including another young man in the physics and astronomy department – ​​although the university says not all 11 deaths have been confirmed as suicides by the medical examiner. Alice said: “If I had known that a young man had killed himself on Harry’s course, I probably would have decided on Exeter, and that course might not have been the right one.” “He was conscientious and didn’t like to fail, so his results were devastating.” Photo: Courtesy of the family During the investigation, Exeter staff said they did not believe the family’s concerns or Harry’s email warranted red flags. Welfare emailed him but thought it might be “intrusive” if they tried to speak to him directly. “We don’t think anyone saw him,” said Alice. “They assumed that because he was quiet he would not want to be contacted. Someone should have checked how it was.” Rupert said: “They’ve set the bar so high, someone has to be lying on the floor having done something to themselves before they say, ‘Oh, there’s a problem.’ The family appeared in person at the two-day inquest in Truro. Exeter staff gave evidence via video link. “I found it very disrespectful,” said Alice. “It feels like they’re trying to sweep the whole thing under the rug. I wanted to take my shoe off several times and throw it at the screens.” The family is calling for new legislation that would require universities to publish the number of students who took their own lives at their institutions and which school those students attended. Rupert said: “If the records hold, it will be a race for the top. If you can show that you are a happy university and your welfare policies are working, you will tell everyone.” They also say the Department of Education should be empowered to investigate and put universities in special measures where the suicide rate exceeds the national average. They say it should be mandatory for pastoral and academic teachers to undergo and record their participation in mental health awareness training. The university claims the health and welfare of students is always its top priority, but during the investigation staff members acknowledged there was some thought to be given to how it kept in touch with students – and parents or guardians. Alice said: “We blame ourselves. Every day I go through Harry’s life and say, if we hadn’t done this or that, we would have chosen a different course, a different university. I think I’ll think about it forever.”