Student ‘silenced by Oxford over claim she was raped in halls’ as storm erupts over ‘gagging order’
Oxford college Lady Margaret Hall ‘imposed gagging order on woman who claimed she was raped’
Lady Margaret Hall is said to have warned the woman she would be expelled if she told the press about the alleged attack or the college’s safeguarding policiesThe non-disclosure agreement was imposed when former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was principal of the college at Oxford between 2015 to 2021 Mr Rusbridger said measures were taken to ‘protect and support the woman’Professor Christine Gerrard, who is the college’s new principal, has settled the claim this week and agreed to pay damages and meet the woman’s legal costs
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An Oxford college imposed a ‘blanket gagging order’ on a student who alleged she was violently raped by another undergraduate, it was reported last night.
Lady Margaret Hall is said to have warned the woman she would be expelled if she told the press about the alleged attack or the college’s safeguarding policies.
The woman told The Times that her alleged attacker, with whom she was in a relationship, entered her room while she was asleep and raped her.
The man, who strongly denied the allegation and has never been charged with any offence, is said to have explained away scratches on his face and neck as being from ‘rough sex’.
Lady Margaret Hall (pictured) is said to have warned the woman she would be expelled if she told the press about the alleged attack or the college’s safeguarding policies
The non-disclosure agreement was imposed when former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was principal of Lady Margaret Hall from 2015 to 2021, the paper reported.
In the woman’s legal complaint, she accused the college of negligence, breach of contract, discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
She said Mr Rusbridger, who stepped down last year, had tried ‘desperately to convince her not to complain’.
He denied there was a gagging order and said the college had responded to the woman’s complaint with an ’18-page legal document which firmly disputed, denied or rebutted virtually all of the claims’.
Mr Rusbridger said extensive measures were taken to ‘protect and support the woman’.
But Professor Christine Gerrard, the college’s new principal, settled the claim this week and agreed to pay damages and meet the woman’s legal costs.
Lady Margaret Hall did not admit liability but said it would become the first Oxford college to sign a Government-backed pledge for universities not to use gagging orders against students.
Mr Rusbridger (pictured) said extensive measures were taken to ‘protect and support the woman’
Professor Gerrard said there was ‘scope for improvement’ in the handling of sexual assault allegations. Proposals include a review of welfare services.
The alleged attacker was briefly suspended from the university but returned in September, it was reported.
That month, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the case and the college imposed gagging clauses on the pair. An internal inquiry began the following January and took seven months to conclude it could not be sure the rape occurred.
The investigation was not aware the alleged attacker had previously been reported to college authorities by a different student for barging into her bedroom and behaving in a sexually threatening manner.
The woman said: ‘I’ve lost count of the members of staff who tried to silence, scare, threaten and undermine me.’
A university spokesman said: ‘Oxford does not use non-disclosure agreements to prevent students from reporting sexual misconduct.’
