City students in rape chat scandal fined

WARWICK University students involved in the vile WhatsApp rape chat scandal have been fined a total of £1,150.

Eleven students were part of the disgusting group chat that saw antiSemitic and sexist comments made, as well as threats about rape.

The university ordered six of the men involved to pay individual fines of £250, £150, and £100, according to student news site The Boar.

The money recovered from them will be reinvested in student experience and facilities, according to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by The Boar.

The fines were set by a Disciplinary Panel, which included Student Union officers.

Ben Newsham, Warwick’s SU president, said: “We have worked closely with the University to hold them to account as they reform their disciplinary processes, and this year the sabbatical officers made it one of our top team priorities.

“This work has led to the implementation of a new sexual misconduct policy, specialist training for all potential disciplinary panel members, and the introduction of a new Report and Support system.”

“We will continue to work with the university to ensure the recommendations of Dr Sharon Persaud’s review are fully implemented, and to ensure that all other forms of misconduct are dealt with appropriately.”

In March 2018 two female students reported WhatsApp messages to the university.

One of the students would later tell BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire show that one of the male students involved had shown her the messages.

In the chat, one of the students in the chat bragged that he would “rape the whole flat to teach them a lesson”.

The student said: “He showed it to me and made it an active threat. He seemed very pleased about what was happening.

“He was showing me in an intimidating way. We were told later on that we should have been flattered by the contents of the messages.”

The University of Warwick launched an investigation which led to five students being suspended - two for 10 years, two for one year and one for life.

But following appeals, the two students banned for 10 years had the bans reduced to one year.

And the investigation process itself came in for criticism, with one of the victims saying she was ‘aggressively questioned’ and made to feel as though she was on trial.

On the back of this, Vice-Chancellor Stuart Croft apologised to the victims for its handling of the case.

He said: “We are genuinely sorry. We have got this wrong. We have not supported them enough. We have not communicated enough.

“I should have been quicker. I should have reached out. I should have engaged.”

The university commissioned a further, independent report in the wake of the scandal, headed by solicitor Dr Sharon Persaud.

The conclusion of the review led to the University of Warwick committing to a “five-point action plan” for transparency, better victim communication and quarterly updates.

In it, Dr Persaud said there was “a profoundly unsatisfactory outcome for almost every single person involved”.

The independent investigation found that the ‘overwhelming view’ was that the appeal process ‘had let down the victims’ - because of the revised outcome and the possibility of the students involved returning to campus, and because of ‘delays in communicating the appeal result’ to the victims.

The vice-chancellor released a statement after the appeals process confirming that they would not be returning to campus.

The report also found that the victims’ accounts of the appeals process focused on the ‘collective failure of the university to acknowledge the harm done to them.’

The Tab revealed in June that two victims were taking legal action against the University of Warwick for their handling of the incident.