FOI_25-087 Reports of sexual assault since 2019-20
Date of response: 16 April 2025
We have now considered your request of 24 March 2025 for the following information:
I am requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Please provide the following information:
The total number of sexual assault and rape allegations made to the university in the last six academic years
For each year, please provide:
The total number of alleged sexual assaults and rapes that were reported to have taken place on campus
The total number of alleged sexual assaults and rapes that were reported to have taken place off campus
How many of the alleged victims were students
How many of the alleged victims were staff members
How many of the alleged victims were female
How many of the alleged victims were male
How many of the alleged victims were non-binary or gender non-conforming
The total number of alleged sexual assault and rape complaints that were upheld by the university
The total number of alleged perpetrators that were suspended or expelled from the university
I have provided a table for each academic year. If possible, please provide the information requested in the table
If any of the information for the above categories is not known, please put n/a
Our response:
Please see accompanying document, our ref: FOI_25-087 Appendix A.
Values marked fewer than five <5: Section 40 (2) exemption explanation:
On this occasion, it is not possible to provide all the requested information. The Act contains several exemptions that allow public authorities to withhold certain information from release. We have applied the following exemption to part of your request.
| Exemption | Reason |
|---|---|
| S.40 (2), Personal information | Disclosure of some of the requested information would be contrary to the requirements of the UK General Data Protection Regulation |
We can confirm that the University does hold this data and we believe that the requested information, constitutes the personal data of individuals, as defined by Article 4(1) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, due to the small numbers involved, we consider these details are exempt from disclosure under Section 40(2) of the FOI Act.
We believe that disclosure this data would be contrary to the requirements of Article 5(1)(a) of the GDPR; namely that information must be processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. These individuals would have no expectation that this information would be made publicly available, and we have not identified a lawful basis that would allow or require us to disclose this information. To ensure that we do not inadvertently release personal data in this response or in combination with other publicly available data, we have replaced all values between 0 and 4 in relation to the number of individuals with the value ‘<5’.
Explanation of data provided:
The above figures are compiled using information held by several University departments, namely Access and Security, Student Services, Human Resource Services and the University’s Student Misconduct Investigation Team and reports made via our online reporting tool; Report and Support.
The figures comprise of the number of reports recorded under a categorisation of either sexual assault, allegation of indecent/sexual offence, allegation of rape, or sexual misconduct. Please see our General Regulations for students, Regulation 10.1.18.1 for a definition of what we define as sexual misconduct.
Please note that where the incident was logged as an allegation of rape, rather than sexual assault, sexual misconduct or allegation of indecent/sexual offence, then these have been counted as such in the corresponding column for ‘total rape complaints’.
Please also note that some reports may be in relation to historical incidents, therefore we have counted reports made to the University per each academic year, and this may not necessarily mean that the sexual assault, rape, indecent/sexual offence or sexual misconduct being reported occurred within that year.
Number of alleged offences to take place on/off campus:
Where the location of the incident (the sexual assault, sexual misconduct, allegation of rape or allegation of indecent/sexual offence) was clearly noted and recorded by the victim/reporter or where our Security report has noted the incident location, we have been able to provide the number of all reports on campus and off campus. Please note that not all data held by the University gives a location of the alleged incident, therefore where we are not able to count those incidents.
Victim status - student and staff:
Where reporters/victims of sexual misconduct chose to be named and identified/recorded as students or staff of the University, those figures have been disclosed.
We are not able to confirm victims as either a student or member of staff if they have reported anonymously or have not identified themselves as a student or member of staff when making a report via Report and Support, or where the report was recorded by our Access and Security team and the identity of the victim was not known at the time of the report being recorded.
Victim gender:
Where the report details the gender of the victim or the victim reporting has stated their gender within their report, we have counted those noted as females, males and non-binary/ gender non-conforming. Where the gender of the alleged victim was not provided or recorded within the report, we are unable to count those in our figures.
Complaints upheld:
For all reports of alleged sexual assault, rape, or any other sexual misconduct the University will make contact with the victim (only where the victim has been named/identified allowing us to make contact) to seek their consent to proceed with a formal complaint and commence disciplinary action against the alleged perpetrator (where the alleged perpetrator is named/identified as a student or member of staff at the University).
Not all victims wish to proceed with a formal complaint/formal disciplinary investigation and therefore no further disciplinary action will be taken by the University against the alleged perpetrator (where a student or staff member). In some cases, the victim may wish to report the incident to the Police for a criminal investigation instead. Where the student wishes to receive support from Student Services, then the appropriate support will be provided to them, regardless of whether they wish to submit a formal complaint.
Where the victim gives their consent to refer their report to our Student Misconduct Investigation Team (where the alleged perpetrator is a student at the University) or Human Resource Service (where the alleged perpetrator isa member of staff at the University) then a formal misconduct investigation will commence.
Formal investigations are carried out only to ascertain whether the alleged perpetrator has breached our General Regulations for Students (in the case of accusations of sexual misconduct made against students, these are General Regulations 10.1.18.1 – sexual misconduct) or whether alleged perpetrator has breached relevant staff policy/code of conduct ( see our Dignity and Respect in the Workplace policy) for staff accused of sexual misconduct. We do not investigate whether a criminal offence has taken place.
Where a student or staff member has been found to have breached the general regulations/code of conduct, these cases will be counted as ‘upheld’ by the University.
Suspensions and expulsions:
Where an alleged perpetrator has been formally investigated by the University and found to have breached general regulations or code of conduct and has been expelled or suspended for a period, these are the number of cases disclosed. This figure will include both staff and students at the University, where applicable.
Suspension and expulsion are not the only forms of disciplinary action given, and not all cases will end in these types of sanctions.
Lastly, we wish to state that for the current academic year, some cases are still pending further investigation therefore the outcome has not yet been reached.