University of East Anglia ramping up measures to tackle spiking
After reports across the country that women are being forcedly injected with harmful drugs on nights out
Last updated 24th Oct 2021
The University of East Anglia are ramping up measures to tackle spiking.
After reports across the country that women are being forcedly injected with harmful drugs on nights out.
These measures include working with local authorities and night-time venues, searching people on entrance to clubs and widely publicising support links to students
Aaron Campbell, the Welfare, Community & Diversity Officer at the University is urging students affected to let them know via their 'report and support' scheme:
"We urge every student to use this, even if its anonymously. It helps us look at trends and helps us see if there's similarities between case. We've increased pat-downs on nights out also".
"Now door staff will be patting down pretty much everybody. We also have bag searches in place and bar staff are also being trained to look out, as well as our alcohol impact time"
He went on to say that it's vital to get local authorities and organisations involved to improve safety:
"We have a direct police officer that we work with, alongside the local team. We are in constant communication with them about any potential reports. In terms of local nightclubs, we've only just started to speak to them".
"But we are hoping to get some more information out to them and communicate the work we are doing, to help make Norwich a safer place for everyone".
He admits there's been a mixed response to their efforts, so far:
"Some of the students haven't yet been aware of how much we've been doing. Obviously we try and put things out there for our social media and our communication channels. But a lot of people don't look on these channels".
"But on Wednesday night, our sports night we had a some really positive feedback about how safe everyone was feeling from a group of girls that played Hockey".
He also told us that eighteen months of restrictions and lockdowns, really haven't helped:
"I think it's partially due to Post-Covid. People have now finally got a chance to be outside of the house and again interacting with people. Some people just don't know how to behave after a year and a half of being in house and they're just behaving in an abhorrent way".
He concluded by telling us that he's confident that the University's Strategy will be successful in stamping the issue out:
"Specifically with needle-spiking, with the increase searches we hope that should help reduce any potential risk. With General spiking, we have increased a lot of different things. We have retrained our bar staff on how to hand out drinks, we offering anti-spiking devices at all of our bars. These are good ways to protect our students"