Uni rugby team banned from playing after sexual and physical abuse reported at initiations

The rugby team at Harper Adams Uni has been banned from playing after students claimed they’d been abused at the team’s initiations.

The harrowing claims have come to light after the uni started an internal investigation into rugby team initiations last month. Documents reveal an anonymous alumnus was sexually assaulted by a rugby team member at a “Pimps and Hoes” sports night social at a pub. He saw three students be sexually assaulted with a wine bottle on the bus back from a match as part of an initiation tradition. The rugby team put out five cigarettes on his back. This student said the abuse from the rugby team was so bad that he switched to another uni. The student’s father told The Telegraph that the student had experienced “anger, insomnia and night terrors brought on by the way [he] was treated at Harper Adams”.

Four other Harper Adams students backed up these claims and added other allegations. One student was reportedly “stripped naked and abandoned in unknown locations”.

The investigation also included claims the rugby team poured hot curry sauce on someone’s head and burned their scalp. One student apparently had to go to hospital because the rugby team sprayed a livestock marker – the spray paint which farmers use to write numbers on sheep – in their eye.

The campus at Harper Adams University (Credit: Richard Law via Creative Commons)

Other students say that the freshers were pressured to drink from a bucket of alcohol, vomit and urine which the older students called “The Baby”.  Freshers were pressured to drink beer until they vomited.

The older rugby players allegedly beat the freshers with belts.

The Student Rugby Football Union has temporarily suspended Harper Adams Uni from playing in any organised rugby matches against other unis.

In the report, Harper Adams Uni said it didn’t peruse any further action against individual students, because most of the rugby players named in the report had left the uni by the time of the Uni’s investigation.

The Rugby Football Union said to The Telegraph: “The RFU and the Students Rugby Football Union (SRFU) are united in their concern for the actions of Harper Adams University in relation to this case and have yet to be reassured that the institution has undertaken action to correct behaviours and safeguard its players.”

Harper Adams Uni specialises in farming and property management. It’s in the countryside near Newport in Shropshire. Princess Anne is the chancellor. Really.

If you have more information relating to this article or a story to share about uni initiations being taken too far, contact [email protected].

Harper Adams University has been approached for comment.

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Feature image credit: Tklages via Creative Commons. Image was resized.