Brighton University student locked inside building is freed after celebrity Twitter plea

Student's mum turns to social media as a 'last resort'

The student, pictured, was freed after around two hours (Emily Rycroft via Twitter)

You head into university to collect an essay and find you’ve been locked in the building. What do you do? Get some celebrities involved to help seal your freedom, of course.

That’s exactly what happened to Brighton University student Emily Rycroft who, on Monday evening, visited the campus to pick up some work which she had submitted earlier.

When the philosophy, politics and ethics student visited the bathroom thinking she had five minutes to spare before the building closed up, she emerged to find she had, in fact, been locked in.

Speaking with BBC News, the student said she called her mum, Gillian Rycroft, who thought she was joking. However, her mum - who lives a five-hour drive away - took to Twitter and pleaded with some famous faces to raise awareness and help in the effort to set her daughter free.

BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine and Radio 1 presenter Jo Whiley - who have over 800,000 Twitter followers between them - set about retweeting Mrs Rycroft’s message which eventually caught the eye of university security staff and key holders.

Mrs Rycroft said: “I did ring all of the university numbers and 101 - but they couldn’t locate a key holder - before resorting to Twitter.”

All in all, Ms Rycroft reportedly spent around two hours inside the university’s Pavilion Parade campus building before being let out “to feel the air again.”

A university spokesperson told BBC News that, as soon as security staff were alerted to the incident, they “attended and released the student.”

The spokesperson added: “The building was being locked a little earlier than usual and we apologise for any distress this may have caused the student and her family.”