A student doctor who fell to her death inside a John Lewis department store had been suffering from anorexia following severe stress over her end-of-year exams, an inquest heard today.
Privately educated Hannah Bharaj, 20, had appeared to be doing well at medical school but she was anxious about her work and feared failure and her weight dropped due to the eating disorder.
On July 12 last year after completing her second year at Birmingham University, Hannah fell to her death from a first floor internal balcony at John Lewis’s Handforth Dean branch near Cheadle, Greater Manchester. She died in hospital the following day.
Medical student Hannah Bharaj, pictured with her father Harry, right, fell to her death on July 12 last year having completed her second year of medical studies
Ms Bharaj, pictured, was suffering from anorexia at the time of her death, her inquest was told
Ms Bharaj died after falling from a balcony inside this John Lewis store in Cheadle, Stockport
The Ms Bharaj was described as ‘a delightful, fun-loving, hard-working and generous-spirited’ had been educated at the prestigious Manchester High School for Girls where she excelled in Science, English and Drama took part in Duke of Edinburgh expeditions 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 stars in her GCSEs which is no mean feat.
‘She was stressed about that more than anything else. She wanted to be a high achiever. To a degree, the school supported that to an extent, the way she wanted to make sure she got her 10 A stars.
‘I think Hannah did so well in her GCSEs and she was up to the challenge in regards to her A-levels but she set herself high standards. She wanted to achieve 4 As and an A* if possible.
‘I think she found the transition most of us go through from GCSE to A-Level, quite tough as it’s a big step up. We were trying to support her and I think whilst doing her A-levels she had completely normal eating. We would usually go on holiday once a year to Cornwall. After her AS exams her eating was entirely normal, she would eat everything she normally ate.
Ms Bharaj’s mother Sarah said her daughter, pictured, was disappointed when she got an A* to As and a B following her A-Levels as she was not able to get into the college she wanted
‘She got an A* in her EPQ, two As and a B. 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.’
Her mother Sarah said: ‘If she didn’t get her high standards she was going to stress about it. She did very well in her GCSEs. She then did four A-levels. Three A levels and an EPQ and applied to do medicine. I don’t think she always wanted to do that. It was around the time of her GCSEs that she was considering doing that. Her two best friends were also wanting to do medicine.
‘She would consider herself a failure because of the B. She needed an A* and two As,and she specifically wanted one of the A*s in science.She was quite hard on herself in regards to working, she works immensely hard. Working up to the exams she was stressed.’
She added: ‘We went in on holiday immediately after her results and had come to terms with redoing her biology. Whilst away she was in contact with other universities and the clearing system and we came to the conclusion that she would take a year out.
‘At that point she was very stressed and upset. I think it was really difficult as she had come to terms with taking a year out but we came back early from the holiday as her grandfather was being ill.
‘He came home after from hospital and he then deteriorated. We were waiting for an ambulance to take him to hospital when they called from Birmingham to say they were offering her a place. It was very difficult for her. She was seeing her grandfather in hospital everyday and then going home and sorting out accommodation at the last minute, it was a pretty stressful time.
‘She didn’t have enough time to adjust. I had taken to her university with my son and I think she was quite traumatised that we hadn’t gone down together as planned, it was very stressful. But she was close to her brother and that helped. It was a very difficult start. ‘
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 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’.
‘She was upset and I pushed her into doing something. Counselling was not a positive experience. She had mumps over Easter. She was quite distressed and it interfered with her revision timetable.
‘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.
An inquest into Ms Bharajadeat is expected to last as at least five days
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.
‘One third of people failed their exams and she was quite distressed about it. At the time she was going out socialising with friends and they seemed to click and got on well. To her friends there was nothing wrong it was almost like split life. She was going out partying and having ‘prinks’ as they do nowadays and then she was coming home very stressed and not quite the same as she was at university.’
Mrs Bharaj said: I considered that she was anorexic. We did talk about it a bit, but she was very het up and we couldn’t say anything right. We weren’t to interfere with her life as an adult.
‘We wanted her to see a GP at that stage, but she wasn’t interested. I think to some degree she was in denial about what was happening to her. She would shut down. We were on holiday before she went back to university.
‘That was our normal Cornwall holiday and it was quite a marker of how different she was. Her brother wasn’t there as he was at uni, and we did a lot of physical activities. She was restricted in what she could do. we went to eat out regularly and she wouldn’t go out.
‘She went out once with us. There was quite a change in her and it affected her mood. She would be in denial and she considered that she was very healthy. She was obsessional about food at that stage.
‘She weighed everything she ate, including give her anything. We would go out food shopping and bought food for herself and she did everything for herself. At was very measured. We did talk about not going back to uni and she seemed very stressed when we talked to her about going back. I thought she didn’t want to go back but she wouldn’t say that to me. She was adamant she was going back although it was stressful that day she went back.
‘She was obviously really struggling. She had moved into a new house at second year,she had moved out of university accommodation. I don’t think she was talking to anybody. It was a real effort for her to go out or go downstairs to eat with everybody as she didn’t want people to notice she was eating. It took her an hour and a half to eat her breakfast and she lost a lot of weight from May onwards.
‘I don’t know if it was to do with body image at the time because she didn’t admit anything to me and she was wearing baggy clothes. She wouldn’t let me see her. She would say ‘I don’t want you to see me’. I was asking her to go seek help from her GP or from somebody at uni but she sent me a poem about herself and how she felt about herself and it was about not wanting to be here and about her being a burden.
‘I kept saying ‘what can I do to help you’ but she didn’t come back with a response so that so I just went to her house and stood on the doorstep. She wouldn’t let me in at first, she was angry that I just turned up. She was very meticulous about everything and her room, she was a bit OCD, and when I turned up her room as a bit of a mess. All of her noted were meticulous but the rest of her room as in a state.
‘Her hair hadn’t been washed, she just looked completely neglected. She was really really thin. We got her teed up with counselling and her GP was really good. She was referred to a consultant and started antidepressants.’
The hearing is expected to last five days.