Students at uni rapped for theft and sex offences
HUNDREDS of students at Scotland’s oldest university have been disciplined for offences including theft and sexual misconduct in less than three years.
An unruly minority at St Andrews University have been reprimanded for misdemeanours including drug and alcohol misuse and assault since the 2015-16 academic year.
One was disciplined for ‘breach of the peace and resisting arrest’, while seven faced formal action by the institution for ‘sexual misconduct’.
Disciplinary action was taken against 392 students over the three years at the university where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge met.
The majority faced minor punishments such as formal warnings or fines. But university chiefs deemed the behaviour of 15 so serious that it warranted punishments including expulsion, suspension or a fine of £500.
The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, show that most offences related to anti social behaviour, although instances dropped by almost half between 2015 and last year.
All cases were dealt with via the university’s ‘conduct and discipline’ proceedings after being told of poor conduct by students, staff, the public or police.
St Andrews Community Council Secretary Patrick Marks said: ‘Given the large numbers of students and the large numbers of pubs and restaurants there is always going to be a certain amount of antisocial behaviour.
‘But it usually happens when there’s a big event. For example, they have a beer festival in February so that tends to lead to more antisocial behaviour than usual. The Students’ Association and the university work with us quite closely and do listen if we ever have any issues we want to raise.’
In 2012, students were warned they would be disciplined if the traditional Raisin Weekend, which previously had seen some put a human hand from a dissection corpse in a postbox and feed laxatives to a donkey, got out of hand.
Between 2015 and today, antisocial behaviour accounted for just over half of all non-academic disciplinary cases against students at the university.
A total of 22 were reprimanded for the ‘misuse of alcohol, drugs and other substances’ and 87 were disciplined for ‘infringement of health and safety rules’.
The number of disciplinary cases fell by 38 per cent between the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic years. There have been 55 cases during 2017-18.
A St Andrews University spokesman said: ‘We record incidents of non-academic misconduct which occur on campus and in the town, unlike many universities which record only those incidents which occur on campus.’
It comes less than a month after it was disclosed that 1,000 students across Scotland’s universities were disciplined over incidents including indecency, harassment, and fighting in only two years.