Big name barrister to back Sussex 5

A top barrister who has defended Julian Assange and Salman Rushdie is to represent four students who face getting thrown out of university, it emerged yesterday.

Geoffrey Robertson QC is offering his services to the University of Sussex pupils who are in hot water after staging a series of disrupting protests.

Geoffrey Robertson has defended Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and author Salman Rushdie in the past

The students were suspended from studies in December after a string of protests against the concern surrounding the outsourcing of campus jobs.

Following a petition signed by nearly 10,000 people, they were reinstated. High-profile backers include it-girl Cara Delevingne.

Supermodel Cara Delevingne has expressed her support for the protesters

One student facing the boot is Michael Segalov, in his final year studying Law with International Relations.

Adriana Mérola Marotta said: “Senior management are deliberately trying to make us feel unwelcome at an institution which I’ve always called home.

“How are we meant to feel part of a university that punishes students for protesting and excludes the campus community from participating in the decision-making processes?”

They will face a disciplinary hearing on Friday.

Back in December, Sussex registrar John Duffy deemed the October protests as “trouble”. Consequently, an East Slope porter requested that Mr. Duffy should “violate yourself brutally with a pineapple”.

Lecturers and students took to the streets twice last term

A lecturer at the University of Brighton revealed that the majority of teachers in their department are working almost double their contracted weekly hours out of necessity. This means that for many, their rate of pay equates to little more than £1 per hour.

The tabled offer was a 1% increase in wages, (which, in reality, is not an increase at all as inflation is over 2%) this amounts to a 13% pay cut since 2008.

Higher management, on the other hand, are getting a 6% pay increase.

The employers describe their offer as ‘sustainable, fair and final’.  The staff describe the offer as disrespectful.

The Occupy Sussex movement coincided with staff protests over unfair pay

The December strike was on a larger scale than its predecessor. All entrances onto Sussex University and Brighton University’s Falmer Campus were occupied with picket lines by crowds of staff and students sporting banners and diverting traffic.

“The support has been great” said one student at the time, who was also taking part in the latest Occupy Sussex effort, “we’ve had a lot students, delivery men and other workers drive up to us and talk to us who were unaware of the strike but they’ve turned their car around rather than break our picket line in support of what we’re doing”.

A yacht being delivered to campus even got turned away due to the blockade.

Some speculate this was for Michael Farthing and John Duffy’s romantic Christmas get-away, whilst others suggest it was meant to be a new addition to the Falmer House moat

Later that day, after the success of the strike, members of the various unions gathered at Brighton’s Victoria Gardens for a peaceful rally and an opportunity to discuss the next steps in their on-going feud with their employers.