UNIVERSITY

SEX ASSAULT

The University of Saskatchewan is reporting a sex assault at a student residence.

The University of Saskatchewan has put out a call for information relating to a January sexual assault in a student residence.

An email was sent out to students late Friday afternoon warning of the assault on a female in a Mceown Park residence and urging students to contact police with information.

The victim believes she was drugged while attending a New Year’s Eve party in the residence, police confirmed. The assault was reported on Jan. 1.

David Hannah, the university’s administrator for student affairs, says the reason for the extended delay in reporting the incident to students is because they were not sure they had enough information at the time the alleged crime was first reported.

“It’s our practice to send these out only if we think there’s an imminent risk to the safety of others in the campus community,” said Hannah, reached by phone Friday night.

“We didn’t think we had enough information to make that decision.”

The university was subsequently contacted by members of the victim’s family, and “the conversation with the family really caused us to take a second look at this,” he said.

“The degree of their concern for their own daughter, but also their concern of notifying the rest of the university community so that people can keep an eye out and take whatever steps might be necessary to prevent anything like this from happening.”

Hannah would not disclose if the victim was a U of S student herself.

The investigation is ongoing, as police continue to interview people who were known to have attended the party. No charges have been laid or arrests made at this time.

Police would not confirm if they have DNA evidence or if the victim was tested for date rape drugs following the assault.

If a U of S student faces criminal charges following the police investigation, the university has its own non-academic disciplinary process that could be pursued, but it would require a written complaint, says Hannah.

Hannah says in the future the university will likely look at establishing a new protocol for dealing with these sorts of warning notices.

“We realize if we do issue a notice we should do it in a more timely fashion. I think more often now institutions are issuing these notices anytime incidents occur, to err on the side of safety, which is what we’d like to do in this situation.”