The vice-chancellor of Warwick University has apologised to the female students targeted by a male “rape chat” group after an independent report said the university needed to improve its procedures for dealing with sexual violence and misconduct.
The report by lawyer Sharon Persaud is critical of the university’s handling of the scandal, which erupted last year after the women discovered they had been the subject of violent sexual comments exchanged among a group of male undergraduates.
Two of the men at the centre of the group chat were banned for 10 years but on appeal it was cut to one year, meaning they could return as students before the women had completed their studies. After a public outcry the university announced in February that the pair would not return, and launched the independent review.
In an interview with the Guardian, Stuart Croft, Warwick’s vice-chancellor, said: “The university made mistakes, and I apologise for these. We need to learn from these experiences and as vice-chancellor it is my responsibility to ensure that we improve our processes and be clearer about what we stand for as a community so that this never happens again.”
Croft said the university’s governing council accepted Persaud’s report and was committed to adopting its recommendations, which included the university training dedicated staff to handle complaints of sexual violence and misconduct, as well as creating procedures and policies for investigating complaints.
“Everyone has the right to feel safe at Warwick … Our ambition over the next 18 months in delivering our action plan is to ensure that everyone feels safe and secure,” he said.
Among Persaud’s main recommendations are for “the incorporation of a clear, simple code of conduct into the student contract so that breach and its consequences are obvious”, as well as making the complaints process fair for all parties.
One of the female students targeted in the group chat said Warwick had taken a crucial step by issuing an apology. But she added the matter would not be closed until the university settled the legal case she had brought against it with another of the victims. She said: “For me it is absolutely vital that nobody who comes forward in good faith, in a potentially vulnerable position, goes through what we went through during the university’s investigation into the boys’ chat.”
Georgina Calvert-Lee, the senior counsel at McAllister Olivarius, the law firm representing the two female students bringing the legal action, said: “The report acknowledges that the outcome of Warwick’s process into the group chat was ‘profoundly unsatisfactory’ and that the process itself was flawed and is open to legal challenge. We have brought a legal challenge and currently the university is denying all liability.
“While we welcome Dr Persaud’s report and the prospect of the University of Warwick reforming the ways it handles sexual misconduct complaints in the future, we do hope it will now redress the harm caused to our clients by its flawed processes in the past. That is only reasonable and fair.”
The report details how nine men were initially suspended after the long-running group chat came to light, discussing rape and sexual assault of women, including named students known to the men, as well as racism, antisemitism and homophobia.
Three of the men were sanctioned for “minor disciplinary breaches” while another withdrew as a student and was later barred from campus. The other five faced a major disciplinary hearing. One was exonerated, two were given one-year suspensions and two given 10-year bans from the campus.
But after appealing, the two men with the longest punishments had their terms changed to a single year, and in December the university rejected a complaint by the victims into the handling of the investigation, prompting a public outcry and protests by staff and students when it came to light this year.
Persaud said: “It is clear from this narrative that the overwhelming view was that the university appeal process has let down the victims,” as the reduced ban meant they risked encountering the men on campus despite earlier assurances by the university.
She also said the appeal decisions and the university’s handling of the controversy “had a traumatic effect on the wider Warwick community”.
“One notable feature was the widespread acknowledgement that the chat ‘could have happened anywhere’ – ie that a parallel and deeply disturbing online world is now a norm of social function,” Persaud wrote.
Complaints of sexual misconduct and violence have been widespread on British university campuses. A Guardian investigation in 2018 found there were nearly 2,000 reports of sexual misconduct committed by students and staff in the previous seven years, and hundreds more where the perpetrator’s identity was not recorded.
