A FEMALE student at Oxford Brookes claimed she was gang-raped by four ‘international athletes’, according to reports.
The 19-year-old woman, who had been in a relationship with one of her alleged attackers and was seeing another, was said to have exchanged messages about ‘group sex’ with the second man.
She went to a student house to pick up a pair of headphones, where the topic was brought up.
The alleged victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told The Times: “I just kept saying, ‘I said that a week ago, I don’t owe you anything’. They were like, ‘No, you owe us group sex, you’ve agreed to it, we have the proof’.”
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Some sexual activity had been consensual before she was overpowered and repeatedly raped, she said.
The matter was reported to Thames Valley Police, which reportedly dropped the investigation after a review found there would be no reasonable prospect of conviction.
Three of the alleged attackers were found to have broken Brookes regulations and were expelled from the university following the complaint in February 2018. One of the men appealed and had his punishment reduced to a suspension.
A fourth man, who was found not to have breached university regulations, was given a written warning.
The Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education was said to have found Brookes breached its own regulations and should have investigated the alleged victim’s complaint sooner.
An Oxford Brookes spokesman told The Times: “We can confirm that in February 2018, the university received allegations relating to sexual violence involving a number of our students.
“These allegations were thoroughly investigated in accordance with the university’s processes, appropriate liaison with the police took place and our internal conduct procedures were completed.
“Appropriate penalties, including the most severe penalties available to the university in relation to some of the students, were applied and were upheld on appeal.”
In June, group Everyone’s Invited published dozens of testimonies from current and former students at Oxford University and Oxford Brookes about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault at the institutions.
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One student said they had had a testicle ‘dragged' across their face as 'banter' in a room full of men during a pre-training briefing.
Another said she had been assaulted by a new housemate in her first year and, despite the matter being reported to university authorities, had had to continue living with him for the rest of the year.
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