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ISSUE 738 23 NOV 2022 exepose.com @Exepose
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1987
Parents open parliamentary petition for ‘Harry’s Law’ following death of Exeter student Print News Team
Exeter takes COP27 Page 5
THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS CONTENT RELATING TO SUICIDE WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING
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HE parents of third year Exeter student Harry Armstrong Evans, who died in June 2021, have launched a petition calling for universities to be legally required to publish their yearly suicide statistics and the departments in which these occur, in the hope that more accurate information can help prevent other students’ deaths. Following the inquest into Harry’s death, University of Exeter Vice Chancellor Lisa Roberts was sent a ‘Report to Prevent Future Deaths,’ and the coroner, Guy Davies, criticised the University’s failure to respond to Harry’s “cry for help,” in the midst of an “acute mental health crisis.” Exeposé sat down with Harry’s parents, Alice and Rupert, to share their son’s story and talk to them about why they are petitioning for ‘Harry’s Law.’
When Alice and Rupert Armstrong Evans first talk to us about their late son, Harry, they paint a picture of a happier time. Talking of Harry’s early years, Alice recounts how he, “was the only boy for three years in that school in a class with nine other little girls. He used to get inundated with Valentine’s cards! He was always Jesus in all the Christmas plays, that sort of thing.” “He was quite a large person, as in, he was gangly.” She goes on. “He was tall for his age. He was a big baby, and later he was the tallest in the class.” After this upbringing, Harry went to a coeducational primary school in Dorset, in Port Regis. “He did all the usual things — he won a prize one year in one of the classes, and he developed his own little character, I think really. He was left-handed and he had the most beautiful handwriting ever. That was one of the reasons I think they offered him a scholarship. Then he won a scholarship to go to Winchester College. And he got the headmaster’s prize to get in there.” Alice begins to tell us that, “he really wasn’t sporty,” as a child but Rupert jumps in. “Well you say that,
he rowed and he did croquet,” and both laugh. “But he wasn’t really your cricket and rugby type,” Alice says. “In his house at Winchester, in the first year, there was this wonderful, ornate desk… All the boys have to stand up, and the tallest boy gets given this fabulous desk. And that was Harry. Its just a little thing, but it sort of sticks in my mind. Really he was much taller than the others. But a quiet, kind person.” Alice and Rupert tell us how Harry received three offers of university places, but chose Exeter because, “he’d been a long way from home before [for school], and being close and able to come back at the weekends we thought would be a good idea. Once Covid started in March 2020, he moved back home and stayed home the whole of that year and did his final year exams from home. He returned, just before January to do his exams, but he got there a bit early because he wanted to really go for it and get good results.” Alice explains. Despite a strong previous academic record, Harry failed his January exams. “It seems that that somehow, you know he didn’t do well and he messed them up for whatever reason,’ Alice tells us.
SCAN HERE ‘We’re really not quite sure why, but at one point he told me that he hadn’t properly uploaded the one exam that he thought he’d actually done quite well in.” “I believe it was at that point he asked his tutor when he could resit this exam. And I think it was then that his tutor told him that if those exams were resat they’d be capped at 40%. My understanding is that this made Harry descend into some sort of depression. He never actually took another exam after that.” Interview continued on page 6
Open letter calls for Freedom Society to apologise over ‘insulting’ event Megan Ballantyne and Charlie Gershinson Editor and News Editor
Exeter students raising money for Movember Page 4
Image: Movember Foundation, Wikicommons
Image: Freedom Society
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ULTIPLE University of Exeter Students’ Guild societies, including Be the Change, Feminist Society and Labour Society among others, penned an open letter against Free-
dom Society, in which they urged it to reconsider its ‘Pint and Policy’ event ‘Daddy Issues: The Crisis of Fatherlessness,’ which took place on Thursday, 10th November. The event was held at Old Timers Wine Bar and Restaurant, and hosted student Albert Dalan to speak about the ‘devastating diagnosis of our modern crisis of fatherlessness.’ At the event itself, Dalan argued that “fatherlessness is one of those epidemics which many people do not seem to talk about that much.” He expressed concerns that households without fathers lacked balance for children, stating, “Every society past and present had both the concept of a father and a mother, or a male role model. As we know, in this family structure, children learn different dynamics from both parents. As we know, mothers provide us love and comfort, while fathers teach us important values.” Dalan went on to say, “More and more children are being raised without fathers, which represents a structural
weakness in the institution of the family.” In an open letter shared on societies’ social medias the day of this event, prior to the event being held, a group of Students’ Guild societies heavily criticised the event as being, ‘damaging to the university’s ethos of inclusion and diversity.’ The letter called on the Freedom Society to ‘outline [their] reasoning behind’ the supposed ‘dangerous negative effects on society,’ caused by ‘fatherlessness,’ which were mentioned in the event’s description on Instagram. The letter went on to state that many members of the signatory societies ‘have been raised solely by [their] mothers’ and ‘feel empowered by this, not impeded’. The societies urged the Freedom Society to ‘reconsider the contents of this event’ and ‘to issue an apology in light of the hurt caused by this.’
Continued on page 3