Student died in ketamine and alcohol ‘misadventure’ on first night at university

Combination of powdered anaesthetic taken with alcohol was fatal, a coroner said

Jeni Larmour (The Royal School Armagh)

A student died as a result of combining ketamine with alcohol in a “misadventure” hours into her first night at university, a coroner ruled.

Jeni Larmour was 18 when she died at Newcastle University on 3 October 2020 during fresher’s week.

The former deputy head girl, from Newtonhamilton in Northern Ireland, snorted the powder with one of her new flatmates, Kavir Kalliecharan, Newcastle coroner’s court was told.

Ms Larmour – whose family remember her as a “clever witty girl” – had arrived in Newcastle and drunk alcohol with her flatmates between 5pm and 7pm, coroner Karen Dilks said on the second day of the inquest.

Ms Dilks concluded Ms Larmour’s death was due to misadventure, defining that as unintentional acts and events.

She said: “Later that evening, while her judgement was impaired due to alcohol, Jeni took a quantity of ketamine provided for her by another, the combined effects of which led to her death.”

Mixing alcohol with ketamine – a dissociative anaesthetic and a Class B substance – is potentially life-threatening, even when small amounts of ketamine are used.

Jeni Larmour’s family said she was a ‘clever witty girl’ (Robert Hutchinson)

Ms Larmour’s alcohol level was two and a half times the legal driving limit and she had 1.3 milligrammes of ketamine per litre of blood in her system, Home Office pathologist Dr Nigel Cooper had told the inquest.

The ketamine level was “below the range of levels that would typically cause death” and Ms Lamour’s alcohol intake would have caused “moderate intoxication”. But Dr Cooper said that the cocktail of both was enough to be lethal.

The inquest heard that Ms Larmour posted Snapchat video showing her in Mr Kalliecharan’s bedroom with white powder on a table. The clip was not played in open court but was seen by witnesses.

Andrew Metcalfe, then an acting detective sergeant with Northumbria Police, said the video revealed no evidence of Ms Larmour or Mr Kalliecharan coercing or pressuring each other to take drugs.

The court heard that Mr Kalliecharan had told Ms Larmour before they took the drugs: “This is how we do it in England.”

Mr Kalliecharan told the coroner he was referring to the English university experience, and that had never taken ketamine before.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Mr Kalliecharan said the drug made him vomit for hours before he fell asleep that night.

He said he had woken up to find Ms Larmour lying lifeless and face down on his bedroom floor at about 5am the next morning.

Ms Larmour was to study urban planning and architecture at Newcastle University (Newcastle University/Alamy/PA)

Immediately after her death, Mr Kalliecharan told flatmates he felt it was his “fault”, explaining at the inquest he felt “guilt” – not in a criminal sense – but through “moral responsibility”.

Mr Kalliecharan, 20, from Leeds, has denied that he supplied the ketamine and told police it belonged to Ms Larmour.

Specialist police officers using sniffer dogs searched the flat in the Park View student accommodation and found ketamine, cannabis and MDMA in Mr Kalliecharan’s room – but he insisted that the ketamine was not his.

No other drugs were found in student rooms in the flat, including Ms Larmour’s, the inquest heard.

Lucy Backhurst, the university’s academic registrar and director of student services, addressed Ms Larmour’s parents David and Sandra at the start of her evidence.

She said: “Jeni was just the sort of bright, able student we want studying with us at Newcastle University.”

Ms Backhurst said her chosen course, urban planning and architecture, was hard to get on to and “not for the faint-hearted”.

She said the university had a compulsory online induction programme with information about drink and drugs.

After Ms Larmour’s death there was a backlash from students when the vice-chancellor emailed them to warn about the risks of drink and drugs, she said.

Ms Backhurst said: “We got an awful lot of kickback from students [saying], ‘Who do you think you are, telling us what to do’?”

She added: “It’s a balance. Students need to be aware of the risks, dangers and signs and we have done an awful lot before 2020 and subsequently to try to raise awareness.”

The coroner, Ms Dilks, urged the university to look again at its induction course on drink and drugs, given that none of the flatmates who gave evidence at the inquest could recall any information from it.