Durham withdraws student’s offer after ‘abhorrent’ competition

Durham University has taken back its offer of a place to a prospective student following an investigation into ‘utterly abhorrent’ comments made in a freshers’ social media group.

The prestigious university was shaken by claims new students were planning a competition for ‘posh lads’ to have sex with the poorest girl on campus. 

Group chats, believed to be for freshers who will be inducted from September 28, were exposed in Facebook group ‘Overheard at Durham Uni’ earlier this month.

One student had his place withdrawn while two other prospective male students ‘were not found to have fallen short’ of the university’s values, reported The Times.

One of the chats, believed to have around 60 members, discussed rape and whether or not members would ‘snitch’ on each other by sharing their messages.

A chat from the ‘Durham Boys Making All The Noise’ group also exposed plans for ‘posh lads’ to compete to sleep with the ‘poorest’ girl at the university. 

Horrified students drew university authorities’ attention to the leaked messages, demanding they ‘condemn this behaviour with action’.

Durham University launched an investigation and vowed to kick out the offending students, saying the ‘unacceptable’ chat ‘violated the values and behaviours that we uphold as a university community’. 

Jeremy Cook, the pro-vice chancellor for colleges and student experience, said others who were investigated were pretending to be students to fraudulently sell tickets to non-existent freshers’ events.

He added: ‘If other comments of an abhorrent nature are found to be genuine and attributable we will take further action to ensure that those individuals have no place at Durham University.’

The group chat includes messages such as ‘First rule about boys club… You don’t talk about boys club’ – followed by ‘Who tf leaks a lads chat fr’ and ‘I’m not a snitch so I’m not about to rat you out from the other group convo’.

Another message states: ‘But keep out of it like, everything we say should be taken with a pinch of salt, that’s what epitomises a lad or boy.’

The chat refers to ’10 lads who got fined and excluded from uni… For making sexist jokes’. A responding post states: ‘Time to go all Gestapo on this chat then ey’.

Sexism and rape is also discussed in the group chat, with one member writing: ‘Yh n aren’t Durham dead on it w sexism n all that since that lad from durham was accused of rape a few years ago’. A second member replies: ‘It’s called being a whore’.

A third adds: ‘Can’t get enough since girls don’t put out’. 

In one discussion, a person wrote: ‘So many people get accused of rape. I’m always worried about it after.’ Another said: ‘I know maybe 15 girls who say they’ve been raped and not one taken to court. Or a police report. 

‘And women will always believe women mostly.’ 

One member told The Tab Durham that he believed the chat was a ‘freshers’ chat for lads that was probably set up by freshers’ ticket companies’. ‘The purpose of the chat wasn’t to objectify women or any of that,’ he claimed. ‘Most of the chat was just lads getting to know each other with those ridiculous exceptions’. 

But disgusted students decided to shame the ‘Durham Boys Making All The Noise’ members after obtaining screenshots of the message thread.

An accompanying post read: ‘As you can see their language is absolutely vile. Have also been talking about spiking girls drinks in freshers. 

‘This is just awful behaviour and as a mother it scares me to death that boys who are only 18 are capable of being so disgusting towards women. 

‘It’s well known that Durham has a bad rate of sexual assault let’s make sure we’re all tackling that and call those out when needed. Also lads competing to f*** the poorest fresher. 

‘Absolutely breaks my heart that this type of stuff exists!!!!’  

One student, who asked to remain anonymous, said they were ‘outraged’ by the content, adding: ‘It’s made girls say that they’re now scared to come to Durham Uni’.

Others told the university to take action, claiming: ‘I hope you’re aware that there’s a freshers ‘lads’ group chat with loads of boys discussing ways to use date rape drugs on girls, discussing them like objects and making plans to ‘s**g the poorest girl’. 

‘Disgusting. Show us how much you condemn this behaviour with your actions. Show us how much you care about the safety of your students. Will you allow them on campus with their quite clear intent?’ 

At the time Mr Cook told MailOnline: ‘The university has been made aware of some utterly abhorrent comments on social media that we understand may have been posted by Durham students.

‘Durham University utterly condemns the content and behaviour demonstrated in these social media posts. This is entirely unacceptable and violates the values and behaviours that we uphold as a university community.

‘We instigated an immediate investigation by our student disciplinary team as soon as we were made aware of these social media posts. 

‘If these posts are found to be genuine and attributable, we will take action to ensure that those involved will have no place at Durham University.’ 

The university also told The Tab Durham: ‘Our students are regularly reminded to display positive and collegial conduct, an exercise responsibility and respect for others, particularly through their social media interactions.’

It comes after an international rugby player became the fourth Durham student in three years to walk free from a court after being accused of a sex attack.

Christopher Twigg, 20, who has played for Thailand, was charged with sexual assault after he allegedly touched a female student following a rugby social night.

But prosecutors dropped the case in January last year after Twigg agreed to apologise to his victim, without admitting any guilt.

It follows a series of cases involving students at the university, two of whom had cases dropped and was cleared.

In January 2016, Louis Richardson, the former secretary of the university’s Union Society, was accused of raping a woman when she was ‘crazy drunk’.

But he was cleared by a jury after less than three hours of deliberations and later told of the ’15 months of absolute hell’ he had been put through by the case. 

In July that year, undergraduate George Worrall was facing three counts of rape, but just weeks before he was due to stand trial, the CPS decided not to proceed.

In that case, the CPS said that, following a review of the case, the prospect of a conviction appeared ‘very unlikely’ due to ‘inconsistencies of the victim’s account’.

The next year, student Alastair Cooke saw the rape case against him dropped. Jurors could not agree on a verdict in his trial and prosecutors decided not seek a retrial.

Mr Cooke, a third-year geology and geophysics student, was weeks away from an expected first class degree when he was arrested in 2015 on suspicion of raping a 23-year-old student in her home when she drunk.