Ellee Seymour

I can totally sympathise with Naomi Sugai’s disappointing experiences at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. The Sunday Telegraph reports how she posted a minute-and-a-half video on YouTube, complaining about her £4,750- a-year business course - and was asked to leave.

It has now been viewed more than 1,800 times and Naomi has been suspended from her course. You can view it here.

This was the university’s heavy-handed response:

"The university said "unfounded" comments made on the site about staff and the university - which have subsequently been removed - were "defamatory". In a letter advising Miss Sugai of her indefinite suspension, Steven Bennett, the university’s secretary, warned: "Should you attend the campus during your suspension, security staff have been instructed to remove you and, if necessary, to seek assistance from the police. This matter has also been referred to our solicitors."

I went there as a mature student in 2004/05 when it was known as the Anglia Polytechnic University after being told that the only thing missing from my CV was an academic qualification, so I decided to study for a degree.

I was advised to study for a PG Cert as an introduction into academic writing, and then try for a PHd or Masters. I was the only one in my class who did not have a first degree and I had no support at all to help me with my lack of academic knowledge. From memory, I had three 1 hour tutorials throughout the whole year and I paid the full course fees out of my own pocket - again, the only student in my class to do so. One tutorial was even cancelled so my tutor could drive his mother to the railway station.

I found it very stressful as I really wanted to do well and desperately wanted support and guidance, which I did mention several times, but it fell on deaf ears.  If it hadn’t had been for one of the other students helping me, I would really have struggled to write my two papers on Applied Social Science Research Methods.

I remember it took ages to get a reply from emails to my tutor, I felt I was being a nuisance if I pushed it too much as it wasn’t his main day job. I felt huge relief when the course finished - and I somehow passed with a distinction.

My immediate reaction was that I could not face returning there, I had no confidence in the college, that I would continue my degree with the Open University.

I hope that the college realises it should have been listening and responding to students to meet their needs and answering any criticisms, not ignoring them, that there may be others like me who were also unhappy there and will report about their disappointing experiences too.

I wish I could have had a different tale to tell about my college days. But I was determined to wear the graduation outfit for a photo, even if it was just a PG Cert.

Hat tip Donal Blaney.

The reunion of a Latvian woman and her 15-year-old son who was snatched as a baby while in his pram outside a supermarket is fantastic news and must give hope to families of other families of missing children.

Irina Sukhova (pictured above with her mother) struggled considerably to gain any media interest after her six-week-old son was abducted and received no response to adverts in the local and national press.

Her husband turned to drink and the couple’s marriage disintegrated, but the anguished mother continued her search alone, even hiring a private detective. But following no leads, police closed the case after the 10th anniversary of the disappearance.

It was common practice in those days for prams to be left outside supermarkets as the shopping aisles were very cramped. While the pram was later found, there was no sign of Vladimir, her only child.

The breakthrough came after a family judge became suspicious about a woman serving a prison sentence and was going to remove her son from her care. The woman confessed he was not her biological son and the judge, remembering the case of Irina’s missing son, ordered a DNA test which proved positive.

While it was a happy ending, it must have been a terrible shock for Vladimir, renamed Ruslan, to learn about the lies his mother had told him for so many years. But I’m so thrilled for his overjoyed mother, who never gave up hoping for his safe return.

* And I would like to wish the best best luck to the stunning Tara London who is a finalist for the best solo female act in the Indy Music Awards 2008.

She was so moved by the plight of families of missing people that she wrote and and recorded a song specially for the campaigning group Forever Searching called "Find Your Way Home". What a star. And it’s a brilliant song. I think she sounds very similar to Norah Jones.

You can play it here. But be prepared to be very moved, it is so haunting, especially when you hear it on the site of a missing American teenager Justin Gaines.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more missing people could find their way home like Vladimir, just like the lyrics in Tara’s song.

In memory of those who are still missing.

UPDATE: Essential reading by JMB on a story about a missing child and how it changes everyone’s life.