A MEMORIAL celebration will be held to mark the life of a university student who died just before Christmas during a night out in Newcastle.

Duncan Gibbon, 21, of Swainby, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire, went missing while celebrating a friend’s 21st birthday on Saturday, December 18.

The Edinburgh University physics student was last seen alive at about midnight in the Fever Bar, on the Quayside.

His friends split into two groups and each thought Mr Gibbon was with the other and so he was not missed until the next day. A police search found Mr Gibbon’s body on Wednesday, December 22, near the High Level Bridge.

A post-mortem examination found that he died as a result of serious fall injuries. No one else is thought to have been involved.

His parents, Simon and Kate Gibbon, and younger brother, Jake, 19, plan to hold a memorial event to mark his life at Swainby Village Hall, on Saturday, January 22, at 1pm.

A Facebook page has also been set up and several hundred friends and well-wishers have visited it to leave messages of condolence.

On the Facebook page, his family have written: “Thank you all once again for your kind thoughts, memories and photos on this site.”

The Gibbon family also plan to support various charities in Duncan’s memory with those to be aided named at a later date.