In an interview with Burn FM on 12th November, Guild Activities and Employability Officer Josephine Conway and Welfare and Community Officer Aaliyah Simms spoke about the series of spikings that have recently taken place at weekly Guild club nights Fab ‘N’ Fresh and Sports Night.

This comes after reports of spikings using needles at the Guild, leading to widespread outcry amongst the community, particularly on Fab ‘N’ Fresh, the University’s unofficial Facebook group. The ‘Fab ‘N’ Halloween’ night held on 30th October saw two students reporting spikings, resulting in one woman spending the night in A&E. 

The Guild issued a statement on 2nd November, saying: ‘We […] want to make it very clear that we have a zero-tolerance approach to anyone who is caught spiking someone with a needle or someone’s drink, and will not hesitate to report the matter to both the Police, and the University.’ They also announced ‘a range of controls being introduced,’ including increased bag searches, passive drug dogs, increased personal searches, metal detector wands, and ‘liaising’ with West Midlands Police.

The Guild has recently come under fire for its decision to reject the society application of Reclaim Campus, who describe themselves as ‘a movement aiming to erase all harassment and fear surrounding UoB campus and Selly Oak.’ This decision faced criticism from students who felt this contradicted the Guild’s efforts to make nights out safer.

We believe that everyone has the right to enjoy a night out safely

When asked by Burn FM if they felt their efforts were ‘heading in the right direction,’ Conway responded that based on student feedback ‘it [feels] positive,’ admitting that ‘there are still more measures that we can implement, but […] you can see that there is such a difference […] we continue to work to implement as many new things as possible.’

In reference to the ‘Brum Night In’ campaign to boycott clubs on 27th October, the Guild cancelled Sports Night, which faced criticism – the officers told Burn FM that ‘in terms of the cancellation of Sports Night, […] we just want to make clear that it wasn’t an intentional choice to undermine the Brum Night In. 

‘We believe that everyone has the right to enjoy a night out safely, so we wanted to support the wider campaign. I mean, we didn’t want to stand by and do nothing and let the event go on and perhaps put people at risk – so we decided to cancel that in solidarity.’

In reference to this solidarity, the officers were asked about the rejection of Reclaim Campus’ society application. Conway responded by revealing that the Guild ‘realised [they] had made a mistake,’ and so ‘got in contact with Reclaim [Campus], and […] sorted that out.

‘I can now confirm that they are a society – it was something that the Guild holds its hands up [about] and we apologise profusely to Reclaim [Campus], but it’s been sorted.’

We are so very sorry that these incidents that happened in our venue, and we take complete responsibility for them happening

The officers were also asked if they thought the University of Birmingham was doing enough to take action. They noted that ‘Overall they’ve been really receptive. I’d say that they’re trying, [but] they’re not where they need to be, so we as a student body should vocalise and let them know what we want, we shouldn’t be afraid of doing that.’

Burn FM asked the officers if the Guild needed to take accountability for this series of spikings – the officers stated ‘we are so very sorry that these incidents that happened in our venue, and we take complete responsibility for them happening, and also for the measures not being put in place sooner.’

‘We didn’t act as quickly as we could have, but also there is procedure, […] these things take time. We would just like to say that we are shocked that anyone would enter our venue [and do that], but as a Guild we take accountability and we’re sorry.’

When asked if they, personally, would feel safe attending Sports Night or Fab ‘N’ Fresh, Conway told Burn FM that she ‘would feel safe;’ Simms responded similarly, saying ‘I feel safe going because I feel like I trust our staff and I know they’ve been trained properly.’ 

As a student union, we feel like we’ve let you down

The officers were also asked questions submitted by students – one asked the Guild to ‘apologise for its mishandling of the entire situation.’

The Guild officers said that they ‘wholeheartedly apologise for these incidents happening, and of course we are so upset genuinely that these happened in our venue. We’d never want anyone to ever be spiked or to feel unsafe.

‘As a student union, we feel like we’ve let you down. […] However, we are working to support the students affected. […] We’ll do everything we can to address this in our own venue.’

They went on to say they thought ‘the way we’ve handled situation may not have been appropriate in places, but it has been very appropriate in others,’ defending their reaction by requesting that ‘people need to look at the situation broadly, [and] now it’s a time to, instead of bash the Guild, come together so we can actually make things better.

‘So I think maybe it’s time for us to talk more about this topic and how as your union we can represent you, not just at the Guild, but wider to stop this issue from happening because safety is so important.’

We’d like to assure you that student safety at our events is still very much a priority for us

When asked for a comment, the Guild officers replied ‘As your team of full time Guild Officers, we apologise for the spiking incidents that have occurred in our venue.  We hate that our students don’t feel safe at our night time events.  As reported after the Open Meeting held on Friday 5th November, we have put a number of safety measures in place (drug detection dogs, increased searches with metal detection wands, drink and bottle covers available, increased staff training etc.) and we’re currently investigating further measures that you told us that you would like to see (metal detection arch, extension of the Selly Express, ID scanners etc.) while ensuring our measures do not disproportionately affect certain groups (by body cameras and use of ratio).

We know that there is still more that we could be doing, which is why we’d like to assure you that student safety at our events is still very much a priority for us.  We’re working with the Police and the University to ensure our students can enjoy a safe night out at the Guild, and we’ll update you with further safety measures, as they are introduced.  If any student would like to discuss safety concerns with us, please email us directly at fto@guild.bham.ac.uk.’

 

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