'Dearly loved' A Level student 'overwhelmed' by the pressures of studying during lockdown took his own life

A 'dearly loved' A Level student, who struggled with his mental health during the pandemic, took his own life, an inquest heard. Lucas Anthony Backhouse, 18, died at home in Lancashire on October 16 last year, LancsLive reports.

Staff at Cardinal Newman College, where he had been studying for A levels, had not been made aware of his mental health issues. An inquest at Preston Coroner’s Court on Tuesday heard how Lucas, of Richardson Avenue in Garstang, had got nine GCSEs at Lancaster Royal Grammar School prior to starting at college, but had struggled to cope with online learning at college during the pandemic.

Lucas’s mum, Angela Backhouse, told the coroner's court how he found online learning difficult, and said the college had returned to 40% of face-to-face learning post pandemic, adding she believed it had had a ‘significant impact’ on her son. The court heard how Lucas had repeated Year 12 twice, successfully passed Business Studies A level then returned to college last September, believing he would be repeating one Year 12 A level and doing one Year 13 course.

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This was only to discover that he had in fact been enrolled on two Year 13 courses, A level Criminology, A Level Maths as well as Core Maths. His dad said this would have affected his ability to apply for the RAF, a long held ambition of his son’s. Lucas started off the courses, last September, but quickly realised how he ‘could not cope,’ the court heard.

Assistant Coroner Sarah Sutherland asked college principal Nick Burnham whether enrolling Lucas onto two Year 13 courses was the way forward, to which he replied: “I can see why it was done... I don’t think Lucas