Tributes pour in for tragic student, 19

A gifted teenage student from Staffordshire has been found dead in his university halls of residence.Birmingham University student Lawrence Stirk, from Great Wyrley, was found on Sunday evening in a flat in Pershore Road, Edgbaston.

The talented 19-year-old astrophysics student, a former pupil at Great Wyrley Performing Arts College, was known by friends for his brilliant mind and even helped tutor them in maths and fix their computers.

West Midlands Police have launched an investigation, but are not treating his death as suspicious and are awaiting the results of a post mortem examination.

Birmingham Coroner Aidan Cotter has been informed.

Peter Stirk, an IT specialist, paid tribute to his "brilliant" son.

"Lawrence had a brilliant mind and took to any technology easily. He was a grade A student and a son loved deeply. The silence is now deafening.

"He had an old head on young shoulders and was very caring. Everyone thinks their child is brilliant, but I never had to boast about it because everyone could see that he was."

Great Wyrley Performing Arts College headteacher Chris Leach said the death was a sad loss for the whole community.

"Lawrence was a great person and a really good student. He stayed with us right through from Year 7 to the end of sixth form and became very well known around the school," he said.

"He developed an expertise in sound and actually became a paid employee of the school, working for us when people hired out the theatre.

"Lawrence was really well-liked and well known, on the one hand that was because he was a very sociable person and had a lot of friends. But it was also because of the extra work he did, and the help he gave, to so many other people within the school and indeed the community."

Tributes from friends and family have also been pouring in on remembrance pages on-line.