Ordeals for Queens’ Students

Queens’ undergraduates have faced several unpleasant incidents in the past week, prompting the Senior Tutor to send out two urgent messages within days of each other.

The first occurred around 3.15am last Thursday, when three female friends were walking home along Downing Street. A young, tall, black man wearing a hoodie approached them at the entrance to the Downing Site. He blocked the pavement, so the students had to split up to get past him. At this point he cornered one of the them in the entrance of the Downing Site. She ducked under his arm, but he turned and gripped her arms. Her friends screamed for help and tried to help her get free, but there was nobody around to help. After about half a minute they managed to get away unhurt, but were all shaken by the experience.

Entrance to the Downing Site, where the attack happened.

In an email detailing the events to undergraduates, the Senior Tutor, James Kelly, said: ‘In reflecting on the contents of this email please do not feel intimidated, nor feel that you should curtail your planned activities. But I do urge you to be mindful of protecting yourselves and your friends by taking sensible precautions…[these] students exercised common sense and in offering each other mutual support they managed to ward off the attacker’.

On Sunday 10^th March, another Queens’ student endured a similarly upsetting episode. At 10.15pm, the student was working in a ground-floor room facing Queens’ lane. The light was on and the curtains were open. Three men, aged around 19-20 came up to the window and started shouting and throwing things. One then climbed onto the low wall outside the window, and all three exposed themselves to the student. Their behaviour became more much aggressive when the student closed their curtains and they began throwing things in a more violent manner.