A 19 years old student tried committing suicide after allegedly being gang-raped by four international student athletes at the Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England. She was assaulted when she went to collect a pair of headphones from their house.
The university expelled three of the four students after a thorough investigation. One of the students had his punishment reduced to suspension on appeal and was also notified to write a letter of apology to the alleged victim. At the same time, the fourth student was given a written warning.
Oxford Brookes is currently under fire as one of the perpetrators is a student under investigation for alleged sex attacks in the United States. The university had been questioned on permitting international students to enroll even when he had rape allegations over him.
The Times reported that the female student spent seven weeks in a psychiatric hospital after trying to overdose herself. The alleged victim stated that she just laughed off the topic of group sex when the men raised it. "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.'' she told the outlet.
When she came back to the room where the men were, she found furniture had been moved and bottles of alcohol around. "Suddenly the mood changed and it became less of a joke," she narrated. "Rather, it was 'You've said this, you're all talk, you owe us, you promised this to us." In the statement of the four men, they firmly claimed that they had consent from the woman through an exchange of text messages.
Thames Valley Police brought no charges after knowing the consent for the sexual activity, but an investigation by an Oxford Brookes misconduct committee confirmed the alleged victim's complaint stating that there had been a violation of university regulations by three of the four athletes. Relying on" balance of probability" as a burden of proof, also "had not taken appropriate care to establish that consent was present throughout the entire evening and this constitutes abuse."
"Sexual violence and harassment has no place at Oxford Brookes," the university spokesman said. "We can confirm that in February 2018, the university received allegations relating to sexual violence involving a number of our students." "'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,"the spokesman added.
Oxford Brookes has admitted to fully recognizing the allegations' as of a very distressing nature.
