Nottingham student who died by suicide raised concerns over staff member’s behaviour

TW: Contains mention of self-harm and suicide

During the third day of an inquest into her death, a jury heard a University of Nottingham student had alleged a member of hospital staff had behaved inappropriately towards her.

Rianna Poiana-Lazarec, a 20-year-old modern languages student at the University of Nottingham, died by suicide in January 2025. Rianna had been a patient at Sherwood Oaks Hospital in Mansfield on two occasions: from July to October 2024 and again at the time of her death.

At Nottingham Coroner’s Court, Joanna Ball, counselling psychologist, who had 22 one-to-one sessions with Rianna, told the inquest that Rianna said one member of staff “had [allegedly] acted inappropriately around her in terms of inappropriate self-disclosure and inappropriate questions.”

During the same session, the jury heard that Rianna became upset after reading medical notes from a previous admission and felt she was being blamed for the apparent inappropriate nature of the interaction.

Ball informed the jury that she did not record the allegation in Rianna’s notes due to the sensitivity of the issue, instead submitting an incident report. The outcome of this report has not been detailed during the inquest so far.

In the weeks leading up to Rianna’s death, the inquest heard that she remained on hourly observations despite indications of a deteriorating mental state and increasingly frequent and severe self-harm incidents.

DC Tony Tonks of Nottinghamshire Police, who is overseeing the investigation into Rianna’s death, told the inquest that in the days before her death, Rianna had “joked” with a friend that her observations should be every fifteen minutes.

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The same friend had also told a nurse how worried she was about Rianna and said being sectioned on Christmas Eve “really broke her,” as it meant she could not spend the festive period with her family.

Before going on annual leave over Christmas, Ms Ball told the inquest that she had emailed colleagues expressing concern over Rianna’s worsening mental state.

The jury is being asked to examine whether adequate observation systems were in place at the time of Rianna’s death, whether any shortcomings contributed to her death and whether Rianna intended to take her own life.

Due to the ongoing nature of the inquest, Nottinghamshire Healthcare said it could not comment at present. The inquest continues.

If you have been affected by the content of this article, Nottingham students can call the Nottingham SU Nightline on 01159514985. 

You can also contact the Samaritans at any time by calling 116 123.  Alternatively, you can contact Shout, a 24/7 text messaging service, by texting the word “Shout” to 85258.

Featured image via LinkedIn and Unsplash