Students fined £100 for online rape chat

UNIVERSITY students who discussed raping women in a WhatsApp group have escaped with fines as low as £100.

Eleven men were part of the group chat, which included threats about rape as well as sexist and anti-Semitic comments.

One made vile jokes about his female housemates, bragging he would ‘rape the whole flat to teach them a lesson’.

Another of the group then said: ‘Rape her friends, too. Sometimes it’s fun to just go wild and rape 100 girls.’

Others added similar comments before the chat ended with the text: ‘What do we do with girls? RAAAAAAAAPE.’

The group chat – which for a time bore the title ‘F*** women, disrespect them all’ – also included members claiming they ‘love Hitler’ and calling for a ‘crusade for racism’.

Eleven students were originally suspended after the sickening messages were shown to Warwick University authorities last year. They had been leaked by one member of the group for reasons which are unclear before being circulated more widely.

Following an investigation, one student was banned from the campus for life, two were banned for ten years and a further two for one year. However, the pair who received decade-long bans had their sentences cut to 12 months on appeal.

Four others were allowed to return to their studies, while another student was cleared of any involvement.

It emerged yesterday that the six members of the group given bans were also fined £100 and £250 each, totalling £1,150.

The fines were set by a disciplinary panel, which included student union officers, and have emerged following a freedom of information request.

Earlier this year, Warwick faced criticism for allowing some of the students back on campus following their year-long bans, meaning they could return to lectures. The lenient punishments have sparked outrage from fellow students. One of the victims told the Victoria Derbyshire programme on BBC2: ‘The group chat was shown to me by one of the males involved.

‘He was showing me in an intimidating way. They spoke about wanting to gangrape me. They talked about my friend, they wanted to genitally mutilate her.’

Another student targeted by the chat group called the 12-month bans a ‘source of shame’. She wrote in a letter to a student newspaper: ‘We were discussed so violently. Racism, sexism... threats of sexual assault and homophobia. Are these issues on which Warwick has nothing to say?’