A “devoted” university student took her own life after she was wrongly told she had failed her exams after getting “39%” in a re-sit exam, when in fact she had passed with 62%.
Mared Foulkes, 21, from Menai Bridge, Anglesey, Wales thought she could not progress to the third year of her course because of the email, which actually related to the exam she previously had to re-sit.
The Cardiff University student was in her second year studying pharmaceuticals, having worked part-time in a pharmacy for several years, and received the email hours before her death, North Wales Live reported.
The student died on July 8 after falling from Britannia Bridge.
An inquest in Caernarfon today heard that the 39% related to an exam she had failed on March 26 and not the re-sit exam she had taken, and passed, on April 24.
Head of School, Professor Mark Gumbleton was present at the hearing and admitted that there were “lessons always to be learned”, following Mared’s death, in relation to the “confusing” way students receive their results.
Speaking during the inquest her mother, Iona Foulkes, said that she felt it was “plain and simple” that Mared’s actions that day were a “direct result” of receiving the email from Cardiff University.
Mrs Foulkes said: “She received an automatic email – there was nothing personal – no phone call, nothing.
“She believed she had failed and the e-mail said she could not progress with her degree.
“She was devoted to her course and to her work in the pharmacy, she would have been horrified.
“She would have felt like all her dreams and aspirations had finished with that sentence – for a 21-year-old it’s unbelievable.”
The mother-of-two said she felt that the course tutor should have been in contact with Mared directly regarding the results and says that parents of students should be made aware of when exam results are due.
She then told her mum she was going to Tesco in Bangor to get ingredients to make a cheesecake the following day, before driving to the bridge.
Mrs Foulkes said that her daughter made no mention of the fact that she was due to receive results that day or that she had received an e-mail saying that she had not been successful.
She also said that Mared showed no signs of feeling down in the lead up to her death but had been upset by the recent death of her grandmother.
The emergency services were called by members of the public but sadly Mared was pronounced dead at the scene with a postmortem later revealing that she sustained a lethal head injury in the fall.