Stops as vacuous intern shreds it, which results in great distress (4,2,5)
I believe the answer is:
ends in tears
'it which results in great distress' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.
'stops as vacuous intern shreds' is the wordplay.
'stops as' becomes 'ends' ('end' can be a synonym of 'stop'. I am not sure about the 'as' bit.).
'vacuous' means to remove the middle letters.
'shreds' becomes 'tears' (I've seen this in another clue).
'intern' with its middle removed is 'in'.
'ends'+'in'+'tears'='ENDS IN TEARS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for ends in tears that I've seen is " Has an unhappy outcome".)