BBC child star Imogen Moorsom died after being rejected from four schools
BBC child star Imogen Moorsom died by suicide aged 20 after being rejected from four medical schools, an inquest has heard.
Gifted French horn player Moorsom, from Bournemouth, qualified for the finals of BBC’s Young Musician of the Year in 2022 and was part of the National Youth Orchestra.
An aspiring doctor, Moorsom applied for medical schools but was unsuccessful and instead won a place to study natural sciences at Lancaster University.
However, her psychiatrist Dr Tessa Jones told the inquest that she ‘struggled to live up to her very high standards’ and had ‘not been able to accept her failure to get into medical school’.
Her mental health spiralled after a family holiday in August and she was found dead later that month before she was due to move to Lancashire for university, the Daily Mail reports.
Moorsom was found dead by her mother Rosemary Moorsom in the morning of August 12 in her bedroom at their family home in Milton Abbas, Dorset.
Moorsom qualified for the finals of BBC’s Young Musician of the Year in 2022 (Picture: BBC / Young Musician 2022)
She said in a statement at the inquest: ‘On August 12 I woke up at approximately 8am. Imogen went up to bed at around 11:30pm the night before and this was the last time I saw her.
‘I went into her room at about 11:40am to let the cat in and I thought she was sleeping in. I saw her bedside light was on which was odd.
‘I went over to her to remove the ligature but did not start any CPR because she was cold to the touch because it was clear she had passed away.’
Moorsom was pronounced dead at the scene and her cause of death was strangulation.
An inquest heard Moorsom received treatment for mental health problems which started during the Covid lockdown.
In 2022, she started university in London but dropped out in her first year due to her poor mental health.
After returning home, Moorsom volunteered at the Dorset NHS Foundation Trust and applied for medical schools.
The rejections caused her mental health to decline and she was subsequently treated at The Priory Hospital, Southampton, the inquest heard.
After receiving specialist care, Moorsom was discharged and went on a family holiday to northern England.
When the family returned, she had further meetings with her psychiatrists.
In a statement read by Dorset’s assistant coroner Richard Middleton, Moorsom was described by her mother as a ‘talented musician and chorister.’
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