Potters Bar victim awarded posthumous degree

One of the victims of the Potters Bar rail crash was awarded a posthumous masters degree at her funeral yesterday.

Chia Hsin Lin, 30, was cremated with her friend, Chia Chin Wu, 30, near Watford, after a ceremony in which her parents, Chiu Kuei-Chih and Lin Chen-Fa, who had travelled from Taiwan, were presented with her degree.

The Taiwanese television journalist was due to complete a Master of Arts degree in Communication Policy at City University in London later this year. One of her tutors, Karen Hart, said: "Lin had finished the teaching part of her degree, which was a one-year course. She was about to return to Taiwan to do the research for the work which would have led to her final dissertation. That would have been submitted and she would have been awarded a masters degree after that. It was a strong wish of hers to finish the course and obtain the degree and her friends and the university thought it was the right thing to award it posthumously."

In a statement issued through Hertfordshire police, Lin's parents said: "Our daughter was so kind and giving, she was a great support to her family and always put our needs before her own. A talented student, she had a promising career ahead of her. She had already been successful in her television work.

"It will be so hard for us to come to terms with her death. She was very good to us and had a very big heart. She had sponsored an orphan in Thailand and was always very quick to give of herself to other people."

Lin and Wu, who was also a journalist with TVBS in Taiwan, had been on a day trip to Cambridge last Friday.

Wu's fiancé, Al Go, who works for the Reuters news agency, said: "In her work she was straight-talking, sincere, direct and thoroughly professional. She was a well-known journalist and was respected by her peers ... She was a very warm, caring person."

Professor David Rhind, the vice-chancellor of City University, said: "Our heartfelt sympathy goes to her family and friends."