The heartbroken parents of a stressed anorexic student doctor watched her plunge to her death from the first floor of John Lewis before they could stop her, an inquest heard.
Hannah Bharaj, 20, was a ‘high-achieving perfectionist’ whose life began to ‘unravel’ following the death of two close family members.
On July 12 last year, a day after completing her second year at Birmingham University, she fell from an internal balcony at John Lewis’s Handforth Dean branch near Cheadle, Greater Manchester. She died in hospital the following day.
At the time of her death, she was a residential patient at the nearby Priory psychiatric hospital seeking treatment for her eating disorder and mental health problems.
Her parents Harminder and Sarah Bharaj told an inquest of the horrifying moment Hannah, from Bolton, got up from the table saying she was going to buy another drink before ‘walking briskly’ to the balcony 20ft away.
Medical student Hannah Bharaj, 20, plunged to her death from the first floor of John Lewis shortly after finishing her second year at Birmingham University
Her father Harminder, pictured together, told the inquest into her death: ‘I watched her fall. I couldn’t do anything. I screamed “please, anyone call an ambulance”‘
Ms Bharaj died after falling from a balcony inside this John Lewis store in Cheadle, Stockport
Mrs Bharaj said: ‘We went to the Priory to pick Hannah up at about 6.15pm. We would tend to go to the upstairs cafe in John Lewis because it stayed open later.
‘Hannah had a book with her, I had a crossword. We all had a drink. Then Hannah said she wanted another drink, but she said she fancied a mocha, which was very unusual because of the calories.
‘I gave her £5 and she got up and something fell out of her book. It was a card addressed to mum and dad. That made me concerned.
‘She went off to get a drink and when I looked up she didn’t go left to the drinks bit, she went right.
‘I think I knew she was walking towards the balcony. I said: “Harry look at the balcony”. I knew then. He leapt up and ran after her. She walked briskly, it was very measured.
‘She stood on a chair then a table then I just saw her legs go down the glass.’
Mr Bharaj added: ‘I ran towards her. I was about to grab her. She went over. I watched her fall. I couldn’t do anything. I screamed “please, anyone call an ambulance”.’
Mr Bharaj said he believed the fall was a ‘deliberate’ attempt to take her own life.
Their daughter was described as ‘delightful, fun-loving, hard-working and generous-spirited’.
She attended the prestigious Manchester High School for Girls where she excelled in Science, English and Drama, but she had ‘high standards’ and would often become stressed when she felt she couldn’t meet them.
Her father, Harry Bharaj from Bolton, told the Stockport hearing: ‘I think her stress was related to her own aspirations and her high standards, she said herself she was determined to get 10 A*s in her GCSEs which is no mean feat.’
Mr Bharaj said his daughter found the transition from GCSE to A-Level difficult, but had set herself a target of getting four As with at least one A*.
She finished with one A*, two As and a B.
He said: ‘She tried to get into medical school and she was rejected and this had a big impact on her when she found out about her B and also she didn’t get into the medical school of her choice.’
The hearing was told Ms Bharaj’s grandfather, to whom she was close, passed away in the first few weeks of term. She returned to university the day after his funeral and barely spoke about his death to friends.
Her mother, Sarah Bharaj added: ‘She was quite quiet and reserved. She was quieter than normal. She was doing OK at university.
‘When she went back in January she was more anxious. She was upset on the phone about work and whether she was going to keep up.
The inquest heard Mrs Bharaj believed her daughter had become anorexic
‘I felt she set the problems she had and she believed it tried to get her to be somebody else.
‘She was very resistant before she could agree to seek some help. It’s fair to say she was angry with me and she felt she wasn’t really listened to.
‘She had a meeting with the welfare tutor and it was very much an academic discussion and a “how are you doing at the moment”.
‘I think at the time she was doing OK. She felt they felt she was “doing OK” rather than her saying “I’m not ok”.’
Ms Bharaj contracted mumps over the Easter before her death which was ‘distressing’ as it interfered with her revision timetable.
Mrs Bharaj continued: ‘She did her revision in bed as she was quite unwell. She did some revision but not nearly as much as she normally would do and she was anxious because her exams were coming up.
‘She went back to uni after Easter then had her exams. She was stressed. She isolated herself quite a bit at home. She didn’t talk a great deal about anything, she was worried about her exams.’
Mrs Bharaj added: ‘She felt she could possibly manage things herself. She was stressed about her exams and she thought she hadn’t done as well as she thought she wanted to do, she thought she failed everything.’
Mrs Bharaj said she wanted her daughter to see a GP as she suspected she was anorexic, but her daughter dismissed the suggestion.
She admitted that her daughter had changed dramatically while at university, as she was restricted in what activities she could participate in during a family holiday to Cornwall.
An inquest into Ms Bharaja’s death is expected to last as at least five days
Hannah began a ‘fanatical’ exercise regime combined with a ‘low calorie high protein’ diet.
She became ‘obsessional’ about food, weighing everything she ate and refusing to allow her parents cook for her.
Eventually she was consuming just 500 calories a day, about a third of the recommended intake for an adult woman, and lost a ‘significant amount of weight’.
Mrs Bharaj said: ‘I think she felt everything in her life was out of control, so the only way to get on top of it was to control everything in a regimented fashion. That was her way of coping with the stress.’
During the early stages of her second year at university Hannah was diagnosed with depression and admitted to Oak Trees eating disorder unit on The Wirral with a body mass index of 14.3 and was diagnosed with ‘severe anorexia’.
Despite being given ‘intensive support’ her weight continued to fall and her depression escalated to the point where she became suicidal and ‘ending her life was her only topic of conversation’.
Dr Jessica Morgan, a consultant psychiatrist at the NHS trust which runs Oak Trees, told the inquest Hannah was a ‘high achieving perfectionist’ who suffered from ‘at least two severe mental illnesses’ and ‘acute grief’.
After six months in the unit Hannah began to show signs of improvement and was allowed to return home.
But the inquest heard the death of a second close family member left her ‘absolutely devastated’.
Shortly after Hannah attempted to take her own life by taking an overdose of her prescribed medication.
She was admitted to an acute psychiatric ward at the Royal Bolton Hospital, before, because of a lack of NHS beds, she was transferred to the Priory, a private clinic in Cheadle.
Mr and Mrs Bharaj told the inquest they felt the Priory wasn’t the right place for their daughter to be treated, describing it as ‘quite a scary place’ where Hannah ‘didn’t have the support she had at Oak Trees’.
The hearing is expected to last five days.