Students given rape alarms after 40 men turn up for weekly stag nights

Student Gemma Cartney and her flatmates ended up being given rape alarms after going for advice on how to cope with the “party flat” above them in Lauriston Park in Edinburgh.

“Everything was fine until a new person bought the flat above us. It has five bedrooms with five beds in each room and we ended up with around 40 middle-aged men holding stag parties nearly every weekend,” said Ms Cartney, who was studying linguistics and English at the University of Edinburgh.

“The carpet was taken up 0 Gemma Cartney was told to move out by police and we had constant noise. There was broken glass in the stair, the front door lock got broken and we even had to fight off one man who tried to force his way into our flat.

“We were so scared coming home we went to the university Advice Place for help. They gave us rape alarms.

“The police said it was our fault for living there and we should move away.

“My flatmate went to talk to councillors but they said they didn’t have any evidence the owner was letting it out,” said Ms Cartney, 23, who is now studying speech therapy at Queen Margaret University.

“Then the councillor said ‘you guys don’t have it so bad, one girl got raped in a stairwell’, then said it was more than one girl who was raped.

“We had no choice but to move out.”