What Will Happen If I Make a Report?

You make all the choices.  There is no pressure to report anything formally or take any action.  

What is Report and Support? (1 minute)

Not Sure Whether to Make a Report?

We understand that there are many barriers around disclosing something that is of a highly sensitive and personal nature and that you may be unsure about whether to report it:

• You may feel ‘it’s not serious enough’
• You may be worried about repercussions
• You might feel embarrassed or ashamed
• You might worry about getting others into trouble
• You may worry that nothing will be done or that you won’t be believed
• You might not be ready to speak to someone

It may have happened recently or some time ago and this maybe the first time or place you have felt safe enough to disclose and or seek support. 

Please know that it was not your fault. You are not to blame. You are not on your own.

What Happens If I Report with Personal Details?

If you decide to make a named report of any incident of sexual abuse, harassment or hate crime, you will be able to choose the outcome(s) you would like from this report:

1. Discuss Options / Be Referred to Support Services

• We will collaborate with you to help you make choices that feel right for you. We won't make decisions or act on the information you provide, without your express permission or request. On very rare occasions where significant risk of harm to you or others is disclosed, we may need to act or share the information, and we would always seek to collaborate with you if doing so.
• We will offer an appointment with specially trained staff to talk through your options and support needs. We will contact you by phone, usually within one working day, to offer the appointment. If we can't get through or you haven't given us phone details, we email to offer some appointments.
• You can choose a female or male practitioner - if this is something that is important to you please mention it to the practitioner when you book an appointment over the phone or check for the pronoun next to their name when you book the appointment online.
• What Happens in a Report and Support Appointment? The appointment is a one-to-one meeting with one of our specially trained practitioners. This can be in person, online, or by phone.  In the appointment we can talk about your report, your needs and your wishes. Your information will remain confidential and it will only be passed on to relevant and specifically trained staff members on a strictly need-to-know basis. We will not disclose any personal or identifiable information to others unless we believe there is a genuine threat to a person's safety.
• There may be situations where we need to take action despite your wishes; we will always seek your co-operation with this and try to minimise the impact on you, but if we believe there is a risk to you, or to another person/ people, we will take reasonable action to manage the risk and protect the relevant parties. (See our Privacy Notice for more information).
• We don't need to know all the details of the incident if you prefer not to discuss them. If this is the first time you disclose an incident of sexual abuse or harassment, we will take careful notes of what you are saying, as this may be used in the Criminal Justice process if you choose to report the offence to the Police at any later date. We will offer you information, advice, support and advocacy depending on what your needs and wishes are.
• You don't have to register with the Student Wellbeing Service to access a Report and Support appointment. We offer Report and Support appointments every working day so hopefully you will be able to access an appointment quickly.

2. Request the University Takes Action

• We will contact you by phone and will offer to put you in touch with the right people for you to make a formal complaint. 
• You might choose to have someone from the Report and Support team involved in this, or see us in a separate appointment, or just pursue the formal complaint without any further input from Report and Support staff.
• If you decide that you want to pursue a formal complaint, the Report and Support Team will forward your case to the Student Conduct and Complaints Team who will contact you to follow up. You can find out more in the Student Conduct Regulations and Procedures.

3. Report for Information Only

• You can provide your details but choose not to be contacted by us. The report will be recorded in the same way an anonymous report would be.
• You can change your mind at a later date and contact us directly if you wish to do so.

What Happens If I Report Anonymously?

If you choose to report anonymously you do not provide any names, contact details, addresses etc. – so there is no way of us (or anyone else) finding any identifiable information about you or others. It will mean that you will not be able to access direct support and information from our team but your report will be taken seriously and is still very valuable information for us:

• You are making an important statement that something happened which is not acceptable and you want to tell the University about it.
• You are also helping us to monitor where and when misconduct is taking place for staff and students. This might show patterns and all helps to raise the profile of this as an issue that needs to be addressed.
• Collecting information about what has happened to people helps us to target campaigns and give a clear message that any kind of violence, harassment and hate crime will not be tolerated. 

You can always change your mind and contact us if you decide that actually you would like to speak to someone. 

Sharing Outcomes of Investigations

We recognise how important it is for reporting parties that they are directly informed about the progress, decisions made and the reasons for those decisions relating to their case or investigation. The extent to which we can disclose outcomes of cases to reporting parties will be determined on a case-by-case basis taking account of data protection legislation and, for students, higher education regulatory requirements.

Immediate Help

If you need immediate assistance we would suggest that you phone the Police on 999. 

If an incident of sexual violence took place within the last seven days you may want to consider attending the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) at Hackenthorpe Lodge as soon as possible. They are a team of specialist medical professionals, and can take forensic samples as well as provide advice and support. There is no need to decide about reporting to the Police, they are completely independent. They take self-referrals and are open office hours, but also open out of hours via the Police. Hackenthorpe Lodge is situated close to the tram stop on the 'Halfway' route. If you would rather talk about this, contact the University's Report and Support team.