12-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Doctors Allegedly Miss Rare Brain Disorder - Could It Have Been Prevented?

A tragedy had unfolded in England, as a 12-year-old girl, Mia Lucas, who reportedly died by suicide in January 2024, was later found to have been suffering from a rare but treatable brain disorder. An inquest held just recently in November 2025 concluded that failures by medical staff to carry out essential neurological tests may have contributed to her death.

The case has shocked many people and reopened questions about how physical illnesses, especially rare neurological conditions, are considered in young patients presenting with psychiatric symptoms. The heart breaking facts now revealed raise a painful question — could Mia's death have been prevented with better care and greater medical awareness?

The Original Reported Cause of Death

Mia's heartbreaking decline began around Christmas 2023, when she reportedly started hearing voices and behaving aggressively toward her mother. Hence, the family became worried and sought urgent help, leading to an ambulance call and her admission to Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham on New Year's Eve as per reports. Allegedly, medical staff judged her to be experiencing an 'acute psychotic episode' and, having found no obvious physical cause from routine blood tests and an MRI scan, decided against pursuing further neurological investigations. She was subsequently sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Then, on 9 January 2024, Mia was transferred to Becton Centre (part of Sheffield Children's Hospital). There, her care was managed as a primarily psychiatric case. Tragically, on 29 January she was found unresponsive in her room and later pronounced dead. Initially, the cause of death was attributed to complications from psychosis.

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What the New Inquest Revealed

However, it was only during the nine day inquest in 2025 that post mortem tests revealed a different and haunting truth. Frozen samples were later tested, and new blood-test evidence showed that Mia had in fact been suffering from Autoimmune encephalitis (AE), a rare inflammatory condition in which the immune system attacks healthy brain tissue. Suspectedly, the inflammation had caused her acute psychosis, hallucinations, aggression, and ultimately profound distress. The revelation reportedly shocked her family and those in the courtroom.

The inquest jury concluded that the decision not to perform a lumbar puncture which is a spinal fluid test that can help detect encephalitis at QMC 'possibly contributed' to Mia's death. Moreover, they further found that information passed between QMC and the Becton Centre allegedly wrongly suggested that all organic (physical) causes had been ruled out. At the Becton Centre, they identified serious failures in managing Mia's risk of self harm. The jury described her situation as a 'rare presentation of a rare condition,' but nonetheless reports further said that the missed diagnostics and poor risk management meant that her death was 'so preventable.'

Mia's mother, Mrs. Hayes, spoke in the aftermath of the inquest about her heartbreak. She described her daughter as a 'happy, fun, friendly girl who had so much to live for,' and said she would 'never forgive' the medical centres for failing her child when she most needed help.

Medical directors at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust issued a formal apology, acknowledging that although AE is rare and initial tests had been negative, the lack of further investigations may have impacted Mia's future.