Students 'demand change' to sex complaint policy

Tuesday 18th June 2019 17:35 EDT
 

Students are demanding "urgent" changes to the way sexual harassment complaints are handled at a university. The University of Essex has taken a year to deal with some cases of sexual assault complaints, the BBC found.

The students' union has started a petition calling for improvements to be made to the system which it said was "seriously failing students". A spokesman for the university said it "will have changes in place for the beginning of the new academic year".

The university previously apologised for delays in handling complaints. The University of Essex set up a new complaints system last year in an effort to tackle sexual harassment.

In May, it was revealed 46 students had made complaints under the new system. The BBC found a male student had been named in four separate complaints lodged between May and November last year.

One student told the BBC she felt her complaint had been "silenced" after it took the university a year to set a misconduct hearing date.


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