Student speaks out over needle spiking
Former Newlands pupil tells her story after series of incidents in Nottingham
A student from Maidenhead who suspects she was spiked with a needle on a night out has urged people to report similar incidents to the police.
Sarah Buckle woke up in hospital the next day with no memories and a bruise on her hand after going to a club in Nottingham with her university pals at the end of September.
The 19-year-old is one of several women up and down the country who have reported being spiked by needles in nightclubs, which has renewed fears for women’s safety.
The ex-Newlands head girl, who lives in Maidenhead Riverside, told the Advertiser: “Friends told me in the club I stopped communicating, I was unable to talk, I started to freak out, I tried to type something on my phone and I was unable to stand up.”
Sarah was then escorted out by security, who assumed she was intoxicated and she was taken home by her friends.
However in the taxi she began screaming for help, being sick and became unconscious.
Her friends took her to hospital where Sarah woke up the following morning.
She said: “I noticed my hand was really throbbing and bruising started to develop, there was a pin prick in the middle.
“I had absolutely no energy but I also felt like I had 10 Red Bulls. It wasn’t like a hangover and the worst feeling was extreme memory loss.”
Sarah, who is in her second year at the University of Nottingham, said she spent 10 hours in hospital and originally thought samples taken of blood and urine would be passed on to the police.
After learning they had not been, she reported the incident to the police the following day and had to take fresh samples.
Nottinghamshire Police said it had been made aware of similar incidents in the city over recent weeks.
Sarah said she thinks needle spiking is becoming more common as people are aware of how to protect their drinks on nights out.
But she has urged those who think they may have been spiked to report it.
“So many people I know have been spiked, it’s hard to report it so people don’t report it,” she added.
“It’s very hard for anybody to be caught.”
Schools have been warned of a potential £5m funding blackhole in the borough by 2023 if no action is taken.
At a virtual schools’ forum meeting on Thursday, October 21, members were told the borough could be seeing a £3.4m deficit in its dedicated school grant (DSG) – a ring-fenced allocation of government money to fund schools and services, by March 2022.
James Norris, head of finance at Achieving for Children, which delivers children’s services on behalf of the council, warned they are seeing a £1.75m overspend in the high needs block this year and a brought-forward deficit of £1.79m.
The high needs block is used to fund and support children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), which the report states they are seeing increased costs relating to the provision of Independent Special schools and a spike in demand for SEND services as a result of the pandemic.
Costs of staffing in schools
are also going up, which is impacting the DSG.
As the budget is in a deficit position, an unearmarked reserve of £134,000 can no longer be held, resulting in a combined blackhole of £3.4m in the DSG.
The total DSG is nearly £134m and the deficit represents 2.5 per cent of the total allocation.
Mr Norris said they could see a £5m blackhole by March 2023 if they ‘do nothing’, but they are doing better than other local authorities such as Kingston who are running at a seven per cent deficit.
However, the director of children’s services Kevin McDaniel warned the Royal Borough is 'rapidly catching up' with the South East’s DSG deficit average of up to six per cent as three years ago, the Royal Borough had a zero deficit.
He said: “The fact that we’re overspending by £1.7m to £2m every year would mean that we’ve got significant work to do to eventually reduce our expenditure in-year or increase the income that goes towards the cost of those services.
“So, I think our position is worsening.”
It was heard a deficit management plan will be drawn up and submitted to the Department for Education to address the pressures the DSG is seeing.
This could mean some ‘underutilised’ commissioned services could be halted or delivered differently, which could potentially merge with other services.
However, it was not stated at the meeting which services this could affect.
Mr McDaniel also spoke of concern their overall budget settlement could decline next year if the number of school placements continues to fall.
He said placements in Windsor and Maidenhead have fallen this year but does not know if it was due to the pandemic or ‘reduced migration’ caused by Brexit.