Raees Osman Rauf · Prevention of Future Deaths report

On the 20 September 2018 an investigation was commenced into the death of Raees Osman Rauf by Assistant Coroner Rachel Sayed. The investigation concluded at the end of the inquest on 4 December 2019. The inquest was conducted by myself. The conclusion of the inquest was a short form conclusion of suicide.

The cause of death was:

1a) Shotgun wound to the head.

i) Raees Osman Rauf started attending the University of Bristol, School of Mathematics, in September 2016. During his first year the course was structured to include lectures, weekly tutorials (led by his Personal Tutor) and weekly homework assignments. Lectures, Tutorials and homework assignment were not mandatory.

ii) Raees Osman Rauf, attended his initial induction tutorial, and was signposted to the relevant Welfare Agencies at this point.

iii) After a few weeks Raees Osman Rauf stopped attending his tutorials and completing homework assignments. On the 10 November 2016 he was sent an email by his personal tutor offering him support, but did not respond to this.

iv) In early November Raees Osman Rauf failed at least one of his exams, obtaining 70/120 credits. He re-sat these, passed and continued to the second year of his degree course in September 2017.

v) The structure of the second year is made up of lectures only, with no weekly tutorial sessions. Homework is set each week but is not mandatory. The University accepted that this left the University no way of monitoring if a student was struggling until they started to fail exams. Personal Tutors are required to offer four, one to one, meetings per year to their students. Raees Osman Raufs did not undertake these offers.

vi) In January, May and June of 2018, Raees Osman Rauf failed to attend for the majority of his exams. The exams he did attend, he failed. On the 11 January 2018 an email was sent to him regarding his failure and he responded saying that he was fine.

vii) Around May/June (the university could not be sure) he received a phone call from somebody within the University Administration Department who asked how he was. He said he was fine. On the 26 June 2018 he was sent an email asking that he withdrew from the university.

viii) On the 12 September 2018 he took his own life with a shot gun to the head.

During the Inquest:

1. The University accepted during the course of the inquest that, due to the non-mandatory nature of tutorials and homework, within the School of Mathematics, it was difficult to assess whether a student was struggling until examination failures unless they specifically brought issues to the attention of the university themselves;

2. During the first year of the mathematics degree, students were not required to attend lectures or weekly tutorials, and weekly homework set was not mandatory. As a result of this there were no sanctions, or requirements to meet with form tutors or other tutors within the School of Mathematics at any point within the year;

3. There is no requirement to meet with a tutor at the school of mathematics after failure of an examination;

4. During the second year there was significantly less opportunity to have contact with the students. This was due to the fact that there were no weekly tutorials with personal tutors. There were lectures each week, for all School of Mathematics students however, attendance was not monitored and was not mandatory. Therefore, sometimes you only notice after exams if a student is really struggling;

5. The university accepted that after they then reach a dead end, and where they believe a student is unwell but they have no other means of addressing it. Students can be required to withdraw from the university with no face to face contact with any member of the University staff.

6. The University detailed how they had changed their policies to address issues highlighted, but accepted that without adequate monitoring measures, mandatory attendance to tutorial and mandatory homework assignments, and in the absence of sanctions for non-attendance of tutorials or failing to hand in homework assignments, the policies may not bite. It was accepted that, were the same situation to present itself again with another student, it may be that nothing different happened to try and assist or help.

7. Students in the School of Mathematics could potentially go without any face to face contact with any member of staff at the University for almost a year.