to believe that this man should not be allowed to live at Student Halls?

[Sep200024]

At Cardiff University, one of the largest Halls of Residence, housing mostly first year students, is called Talybont.

At Talybont this year, a man (Sean Hughes) who has recently been released from prison for strangling a woman, has been given a live-in safeguarding role at the Halls.

His crime was to attack and strangle a young woman, and he is currently out on license after being released from prison in May of this year.

His role at the university is to live in the Halls of Residence as a ‘life assistant’, where his role is to “support vulnerable students and manage crisis situations”.

AIBU to think that this should not be allowed? How on earth have the application and vetting procedures at Cardiff University allowed this to happen?

Newspaper article here

Totally agree, @StrataZon . I have a 17 year old DD who is currently going on open days and applying to universities and this sort of thing terrifies me.

He's a post-grad, not a first year, and he used to be a headteacher (according to one of the other threads) so I can see how, on paper and without his conviction, he would have been selected for the role.

I attended a fantastic presentation by Fiona Druet of emilytest.co.uk a couple of years ago. Her fresher daughter died by suicide after abuse from her uni boyfriend and one of the things they are suggesting is more training for student support workers. It just makes me furiously angry that a violent abuser could be sitting in a training session nodding along to those kinds of messages.

I have received a response from the university stating that they are “unable to provide information or comment further on this case”.

With this stance, current students and parents don’t even know if he is still there, never mind the details of how he was appointed and reassurance as to it not happening again.

It wasn't them that volunteered the info in the first place, @Sep200024 , so further info may well be forthcoming from whoever the original source was... hopefully!
Let's hope the source keeps Wales Online updated with any developments.

You'd think after this exposure Cardiff uni would have to make some sort of statement to reassure students and parents.

That's interesting. I will need more than that for Cardiff to remain on the shortlist for us. Pity, as it's a really good course.

I'll drop them a line and see what response comes back. It's been one of the most popular institutions and their applications have grown a lot in the last few years - I can't believe they wouldn't try to rectify this negative publicity, especially during the application window for 2023 applicants

The university can't respond to queries from third parties about specific students. We are not even allowed to confirm to a parent that their son or daughter is attending the university.

They can, however, issue a statement, but (again because of data protection) it will likely be so vague as to annoy as much as reassure students and parents.

The best thing would have been not to have got themselves into this situation in the first place. It wouldn't have been difficult to avoid giving a self-confessed strangler this job.

It seems the university have now removed all details of the residence support team from their website, so now the poor students don’t have anyone to contact!

I guess that's marginally better than contacting him though @Sep200024

How on earth have the application and vetting procedures at Cardiff University allowed this to happen?

a) They're idiots

b) They don't care about women

One or both of these things are true.

We can only look to Mermaids for an example of how these ‘procedures’ work.

If your organisation follows guidelines from an advisory group that is kink positive, this person’s ‘crime’ might have a different framing.

Plus we are now familiar that organisations will skip the procedure if they believe another organisation has already done it.

I grew up in Cardiff, in an area which is now the central student area for Cardiff Uni.

On visits back to family walking round the area I can confirm that it has been taken over by aggressive pro-prostitution and TRAs. What appear to be student groups, putting up violent stickers, 'Death to all TERFs' type rhetoric, on public infrastructure such as walls, lampposts and pedestrian crossings.

Cardiff Uni seems fine with this.

So, with all that said, this does not surprise me in the slightest. It is all of a piece with the Uni and the surrounding area's collapse into misogyny and lack of safeguarding for women.

He applied for the job. He wanted this situation. Whoever OKd this is an idiot. But that doesn’t make him any less guilty.

If he wanted to do good, there are hundreds of other jobs he could apply for that don’t give him access to young women who are vulnerable or in crisis.

“He disclosed his conviction so he’s been 100% honest”

Really? No one is 100% honest on job application forms or in real life. Not hiding a conviction does not make you 100% honest.

I believe that a lot of the powerful people in society and decision-makers, including those within the criminal justice system, are would- be paedophiles/rapists. They may not have carried out those acts, but they would certainly like to and sympathise greatly with perpetrators of these heinous acts.

I agree, IamaReader. Not because I think powerful people are more likely to be rapists etc, but purely because men in general seem to have a very high level of tolerance for sex offences. Presumably because of their own fantasies.

Due to this being mentioned on Mumsnet l was able to tell a dad with his daughter who was visiting Cardiff university and staying in the same hotel as me. He was pretty shocked.

This should never have happened.
Now that it has, and the incident is being investigated I should think that their recruitment department is under intense scrutiny.

You'd like to think @BagpussBagpussOldFatFurryCatpuss but somehow I doubt it.

Well done for making that dad aware @nzborn - let's hope he questions them on it as I reckon prospective students / parents challenging them on it and highlighting how unacceptable it is, will be the only way to make them re-think.

What the university can reply with matters not one jot.

People writing in show they are not happy with it.

Yes I don't believe they are more likely to be sexual offenders /have peverse fantasies etc but I think they have the power to do it in a more organised way without getting caught, and doing all they can to ensure their fellow deviants who do get caught aren't punished 'excessively'.

I studied law in the noughties and I'll never forget the lecture in the criminal law module about a case where someone raped a teenager who was walking by on a hot day. The man was jailed for a very short period- around a year I think.

The sentencing judge had said, in regards to the rapist 'it could have happened to anyone' as if he was the victim or as if the act of raping someone, is something that happens to the rapist. Unbelievable.