Thread by @thetimes

“One night we went clubbing in Newcastle and I had to call an ambulance for four girls in the space of two hours"

More and more female students are reporting they’ve been drugged at clubs and pubs, with some saying needles were used
thetimes.co.uk/article/spiked…

When Isabella Arthur woke up in her college room at the end of the summer term with a thumping headache, sweating and shivering, she couldn’t believe she had got drunk the night before

She had gone out for a quick catch-up with friends in exam week but can remember nothing after reaching the bar

She looked at her bank statement and the payment was for a drink and a shot of Tequila Rose. It must have been spiked

Now in her second year and 20, Isabella was determined that it wouldn’t happen to this year’s freshers at Durham University

thetimes.co.uk/article/spiked…

There are now lists of the number of students during freshers week in each nightclub who suspected that their drinks were spiked: Babylon 29, Klute 23, Players 21.

“We are cancelling socials and avoiding clubs. It feels like the pandemic but scarier"

Students are becoming increasingly frightened as more and more post appalling stories of waking up in car parks, alleys and bedrooms with no idea how they got there, often plastered in vomit, barely able to move, terrified of what might have happened while they were unconscious

This can’t be dismissed as hysteria, and it comes at a time when women are still trying to comprehend the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard in March.

“This hasn’t been ‘trendified’. It has definitely escalated appallingly since I left Durham,” says Jess Jones

“I think some men in lockdown became de-socialised. Locked away they became caught up in incel forums and other misogynistic platforms, and it’s easy to buy drugs online”

thetimes.co.uk/article/spiked…

One of the most frightening issues, she says, is that some seem to be doing it for fun, to humiliate and degrade women without touching them

Increasing numbers of young women have reported being stabbed by a needle and passing out, paralysed. At Bristol, female students have begun wearing jeans and leather jackets to parties as protection from attackers

“I wouldn’t wear a crop top now, but it’s sweltering going out in full protective gear,” says Lola Miles, a 21-year-old third-year student

The founder of @ei_movement, @somacjsara explains that even when a victim has been drugged and abused, “the victim-blaming attitudes are prevalent. ‘Just accept you drank too much,’ people say"

Sorcha Kahn, co-chairwoman of the Labour club at Cambridge, says: “We are always told to be aware. This isn’t about the behaviour of women but predatory men and club-owners”

Read more: thetimes.co.uk/article/spiked…