What is the difference between Bishop Burton College in Beverley, Yorks, and the Taliban?
A young woman was suspended from college after accusing fellow students of rape and sexual assault, a court heard.
Three men have gone on trial at Hull Crown Court accused of abusing the woman on campus at Bishop Burton College.
The alleged victim, who is in her late teens, gave evidence to say she was told to leave the college after reporting the men to staff.
Bishop “Taliban” Burton College.
The woman told the jury her parents persuaded her to report it to the police after she received a letter from the college recommending she be excluded.
“I told the college I had been sexually assaulted but I didn’t give the details of what had happened, I just gave them an outline,” she said.
“The college said I had brought it into disrepute by having sexual actions with a group of people.
“A couple of days later they recommended that I was excluded.
“I was upset about it and my mum persuaded me to go to the police.”
The court heard a senior member of staff at the college interviewed the alleged victim and sent her a letter which read: “I’m writing to confirm you have received a recommendation for exclusion from the college for bringing the college into disrepute by demeaning sexual actions with a group of people.”
It’s because she couldn’t find four male witnesses to the assault, I suppose.
Incidents such as these boils my blood, yes, but boggles my mind, too. I mean, what can possibly be going through the faith-addled minds of these fuckers – when some poor woman comes to them and reports an incident of sexual assault?
Instead of:
“OMG! We are so sorry to learn about this! Let us try to assist you in a meaningful way. We shall spare no effort in trying to bring the perpetrator to justice and bring you some succor”,
do their thoughts go immediately like:
“Shit! This broad/slut/whore/[assorted expressions of misogyny] is out to destroy the poor men in this god-fearing community. Shut up! SHUT UP! lalalalalalalalalalalala…”
Fuck the godawful god-botherers. GAAAAH!!!
I suppose she did have demeaning relationships, but it seems to me that the one that was demeaned was her. The real way to bring the college into disrepute is to demonstrate that they don’t care a whit about protecting their female students, and they’ve done that very nicely.
Yeah no rape culture here in the UK! Nothing to see at all…
Well, this is time to look at the regulations colleges and Unison can make for themselves on student suspension and exclusion. I myself had been excluded from Brighton Uni social work course after reporting YMCA senior manager covering up an offence against a family court order. The Uni depends on such large service providers. These institutions can destroy our lives and are not held accountable by anyone!!
Berndsass@hotmail.com
It’s not even a crazy bible college or anything. If I remember rightly, its a farming college.
I know this will amaze everyone but I was suspended from various schools, fairly often.
But it was because I acted like A COMPLETE IDIOT and obviously deserved it. Like I said, few people’s jaws are going to drop about that.
But I actually was suspended once and punished often for being a victim. I was bullied quite a lot from when I was four to sixteen or so. I tended to suck it up, but occasionally I HULK’D. Which is probably what the bullies wanted.
But anyway, I was suspended or punished for violence against the people who were beating me up and/or being horribly shitty to me every day. I actually did the violence. Regardless of how provoked I was, I still shouldn’t have responded that way and I’m sorry I did.
I’m saying this because there’s a huge difference between what happened to me – and what I did about it – and what happened to this young woman. I wasn’t excluded for fighting back, I was excluded for fighting. I wasn’t excluded for telling teachers how I’d been abused (although neither were the abusers) I was excluded for – whenever I’d had more than enough – going mental.
I was provoked, but my decisions were still wrong ones.
This woman wasn’t provoked, she was abused.
I know I’m rambling, but I wanted to point out the difference between taking the law into your own hands and telling people who should be trustworthy about the bad things that have happened to you. The idea that this woman got punished for doing the latter in about the same way I did for doing the former is upsetting.
Sorry, I’m not making much sense. I hope you can see what I’m getting at.
I think the worry is about the absence of any external scrutiny of what these colleges and Universities are doing. Not denying that they should make decisions but there must be access to an independent hearing for students like the young woman at that college and myself at Brighton University as described above.
The principal at this college is a woman and a mother, in some ways this makes their actions worse.