Exeter students try to escape police through back garden as party is shut down

An Exeter student house party was shut down on Saturday night according to a report from ITV News. 

This comes after small handful of students were suspended following a breach in coronavirus rules, and after the university’s  ‘soft lockdown’ was extended for another week, as stated in a Registrar email to students on Friday.

Devon and Cornwall Response Police officer Amelia Hawkins, took to Twitter to express her frustration over the event, and claimed that students tried to escape police by attempting to leave through the back garden.

A total of 12 fines were given out to attendees at the party by police.

Despite a drop in Covid-19 cases in Exeter to below 100, the university has warned students not to become complacent. As a result of this, the university has extended its ‘soft lockdown’ by yet another week until November 2nd.

Mike Shore-Nye, Registrar for the university, discussed the reasoning for this extension in an email to students: “As you know from my regular communications over the past few weeks we have been proactively managing a Covid-19 outbreak amongst our students in Exeter and through the actions we have taken together we are now seeing a significant decline in the number of new positive cases.

“However, as I said earlier this week we must not be complacent. We can expect to see further spikes and challenges and the best thing we can all do is take personal and collective responsibility for preventing the spread of the virus.

“For students in Exeter our advice remains not to meet indoors with students who are not part of your household for a further 7 days until 2^nd November, and we hope that this will be the very final week that we need to do this. Although this will be dependent on the continued reduction in case numbers being maintained.”

The University of Exeter told ITV most students have followed the rules, but will take action against those who break them.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Covid cases around University of Exeter drop below 100

• Exeter Uni students suspended for breaching coronavirus rules

• Boris Johnson labels Exeter students ‘heroic’ for following COVID-19 guidelines