A talented straight-A student about to begin studies at a prestigious university has lost her two-year battle with anorexia.
A "very, very thin" Alice Rae, 18, was found dead in bed by her doctor mother two weeks ago in their $4.2 million family home in Hampshire in the south of England.
The blonde teenager had been going through a "bad patch" during intensive studying, which led to an invitation to study economics at the University of Cambridge.
"It is such a tragedy, it really is," the Daily Mail reported Alice's mother Christine Rae as saying.
"She was beautiful, clever and incredibly gifted.
"She was not very well but her death was very sudden."
Alice's parents have slammed the National Health Service's treatment of their ill daughter.
"We tried all sorts of treatment but nothing worked," Dr Rae said.
"She was being cared for at the Eastleigh eating disorder clinic and by the end she was in full-time NHS care.
"Anorexia is a very difficult thing to treat, but the standard of NHS care fell below what we would have expected."
A keen debater and horse-rider, Alice was destined for a bright future according to her school principal.
"Alice was a highly intelligent, happy, well-liked member of the school community who played a full part in school life and had huge potential for the future," St Swithun’s Headmistress Dr Helen Harvey said.
Her family says the suspected cause of death was multi-organ failure.
She will be buried near the family home on Friday.
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