#AssaultOnCampus

An investigation by The Breaker

University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is a city based university in the south-west, with departments mainly situated in the Tyndalls Park area.

We ranked all 29 universities in the south of England against the following best practice criteria to assess how well each institution raises awareness of help available to survivors and encourages them to report. Other marks are given for campaigns and extra measures which show the university’s engagement with preventing and responding to sexual assault. Each received a mark out of 5.

  1. Anonymous form: A spokesperson for the university said they are “due to introduce a new ‘Report and Support’ online system … [where] students can choose whether to remain anonymous or not.” However, at time of writing there is no process in place for students to report an incident of sexual assault anonymously.
  2. Campaigns: The university is a founder member of the Forum Against Sexual Violence with colleagues at other universities in the south west. The students’ union has also taken part in the ‘Reclaim the Night’ movement, which opposes sexual violence.
  3. Sexual assault advice page: To make a formal complaint, students have access to an ‘Acceptable Behaviour Policy’ which encourages students to report to the police and outlines the university’s formal complaint procedure. There is also a web page titled ‘Physical and sexual abuse’, which provides emergency contact details, as well as contacts for support groups.
  4. External contacts: Alongside the above mentioned support groups, the students’ union has comprehensive information about how to report sexual assault and links to external support.
  5. Other measures: The University has introduced new sexual harassment and consent awareness training sessions as part of the introductory programmes in student residences.

Mark: 4/5

A spokesperson for the University of Bristol said: “The welfare of all our students is vitally important to us and we have a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment and clear policies are in place to deal with complaints.”