A community is gearing up to mark the anniversary of a student’s mystery death.
Over 100 friends and family have been invited to pay their respects to popular Shelley teen Jane Khalaf on Friday, November 20th, exactly one year since she died in a hospital in Cologne, Germany.
Crowds will first gather at Jane’s grave in Hey Lane Cemetery at 7pm, where they will light flowers and candles and lay down items such as Kurdish flags.
The mourners will then travel to Voda Bar in Huddersfield for drinks in her honour and to share their fond memories of her.
Northumbria University politics and former Shelley College student Jane, 19, died while on an exchange visit to the city, where she had been celebrating the annual carnival.
Several medical and police reports on her death from German officials were released and translated into English for her family in June.
The hospital notes said that doctors had found traces of ecstasy in her blood and that she had died due to a “massive” brain swelling.
However, her family addressed several large holes in the reports, including hospital admissions that they did not know why her brain had swollen and, even more concerning, why doctors at St Marien Hospital had not taken a blood sample immediately after her arrival at the hospital.
Her family have continued to campaign since then to get more answers and a definitive report, which they hope will enable a local inquest to be opened.
Talking about their anguish, Jane’s mum, Rojin, said: “Having your child die is the realisation of your worst fear come true.
“It’s just awful, especially as we still don’t know lots about her death and the investigation into it is not going forward.
“We’ve had no thorough report that totally addresses how and why she died– we want a more detailed investigation and a final report.
“It’s unacceptable how the hospitals dealt with her and the police in their investigation over who gave her the ecstasy tablets.
“She was just a victim.
“Because of the lack of this we’ve still not been given an inquest date for Jane here.
“It’s been very stressful and such a long time and we’ve recently employed our own solicitor who we hope can make some progress”.
Rojin will visit her daughter’s grave at another point over the weekend.
“I can’t stand going to her grave very often.
“She was our daughter, our hope and meant everything to us.
“She had a positive influence on everyone she met.
“My son Kevin keeps asking about her and my other daughter Naze is lonely all the time because they were such good friends.
“We still can’t believe that this happened and if she had died of a simpler accident it would have been easier, in a way.
“It’s affected us dreadfully and dramatically”.
