A student took her own life after wrongly being told she had failed an exam and could not move on to the third year of her degree, an inquest heard.

Mared Foulkes, 21, was studying pharmacy at Cardiff University while working part-time at a chemist’s and had re-sat one of her assessments.

She received an automated email from the university on July 8 last year saying she had failed with a score of 39%. But it referred to a test from March 26 and not the re-sit she took – and passed with a mark of 62% – a month later on April 24.

That same evening, she drove to the Britannia Bridge in Anglesey, North Wales, where her body was later found.

Her mother, Iona Foulkes, told an inquest into her death: ‘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 – for a 21-year-old it’s unbelievable.’

Mrs Foulkes said the course tutor should have been in contact with her daughter directly about the results and believes parents of students should be told when exam results are due.

Professor Mark Gumbleton, Head of School, said there were ‘lessons always to be learned’ following Ms Foulkes’s death in relation to the ‘confusing’ way students receive their results.

The inquest heard Ms Foulkes had to complete her studies online during lockdown last year. She also lost her grandmother in May 2020.

Mrs Foulkes said her daughter made no mention of the fact that she was due to receive results that day or that she had received an email saying that she had not been successful.

It later emerged she had texted a friend prior to killing herself saying: ‘I did crap.’

Her mum told the inquest: ‘That evening, Mared said she was going to Tesco to get some things and asked if I needed anything. Then she closed the fridge door, got the car keys and left.’

The emergency services were called by members of the public but sadly Ms Foulkes was pronounced dead at the scene.

A post-mortem examination later revealed that she sustained a lethal head injury in the fall.

Acting senior coroner Katie Sutherland recorded a conclusion of suicide.

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