What would you advise in this scenario

[thenewaveragebear1983]

I’ll try to summarise briefly, sorry for the essay! - I am very interested in the advice of wise mumsnetters here.
Dd is 19 and she is away at uni in Birmingham , in halls at BCU which is the city centre. She messaged me this morning to say: she went out to buy loo roll (5 mins walk from accom to Tesco express) and I gather from this that it was during the night. The streets would have had a few people I assume, bars/takeaways etc plus it’s student-ville but her actual courtyard could have been quite quiet.
she returned to her gated complex - imagine key buzzed gate that opens into a courtyard with flats of accommodation on both sides (but it’s not especially salubrious, it’s a bit grim tbh, but that’s another story!)

A guy, early 20s maybe , dressed in black (she at first thought he was campus security) followed her in through the gate. The gates are electronic so you can’t pull them shut, they self close. He is now locked into the courtyard with her, would have to push button to exit but wouldn’t need a key. I’m guessing that there was no one else in the courtyard or she would absolutely have asked them for help.

he starts to speak to her, saying he’s never kissed a white girl and he fantasises about it, she told him to back off, he continues to walk with her, she said to stop talking to her, he reached out to touch her and she said do NOT touch me. She told him her boyfriend was upstairs (not true). In the end she realised that if she was to get to the door to the flats and unlock, she wouldn’t get in quick enough and he would just barge in. For reference, she is very skinny and quite weak, she’s not exactly a tough cookie.
so, she very calmly said “ok, let’s sit down and chat’ at which point he walked ahead of her to a bench, she quickly unlocked the door and got inside. She said she was really calm.

i am awestruck by her total calmness and she never fails to impress me how level headed she is, but seriously I know it’s shaken her up, she works in a cocktail bar and gets home late, and this guy now knows where she lives. Is calm the right way? Should she have screamed, gone apeshit? Would that be advised? I don’t know how to help her protect herself- should she (any woman?) carry a rape alarm?

she has called 101 this morning and had spoken to the student union, apparently there is no cctv. I suppose I’m interested in peoples thoughts as to what to advise dd in this scenario. I originally said if it happened again don’t be calm, go apeshit- but does that make her more vulnerable, I don’t know?
what would you do? What would you advise your dd?

well done her, you must be so so proud of her, amazing. No CCTV is appalling, and she should report to the Police.

Thank you, yes I am @littleripper . I can’t stop thinking about how that could have ended up.

Is there a feminist society at the Uni? She could speak to them about this and the lack of CCTV. Maybe with the help of other women, together they could make a push for improving security for female students in uni accommodation.

Report to the police - racially motivated attempted sex assault

I think she did brilliantly. I am trying to figure out exactly where you mean in Bham but from working in property management in the city I know this is a problem with certain groups targeting lone females. He needs to be reported and the campus need to up their security game. If he knows there isn't CCTV there that could be exactly why he is there.

Ps ensure it is reported to the property / estates department / managing agent not just the union. And campus security.

@Pearfacebananapoop its the student village that sort of lies between the end of corporation st by the law courts and millennium point, by Aston uni?

thanks all. She has reported it, when I say union I mean like the student services people. It is awful there’s no cctv. I haven’t heard from her whether 101 have called her back yet. The student services said they would ask security to increase their patrols round there.

Oh I know where you mean. I know historically this has been a problem near Broad Street side.

I would imagine the university would take security pretty seriously. I'm surprised they don't have CCTV though.
She did very well under the circumstances.
When I worked on campus I called uni security when I saw a male student pushing his girlfriend around and they turned up extremely quickly.
I would keep pushing student services.
It's difficult to prevent someone following you through those kind of security gates, so that's a weakness in the system I think.

Good advice from PP's, I hope DD is ok OP. To answer your question about whether it's right to stay calm or go apeshit I think it totally depends on the situation and in this case DD was probably right to stay calm and just get herself behind a locked door. In a more public area with people around I would say scream and shout and attract attention but I'm not sure what good it would have done DD in an empty courtyard and it may well have put her in more danger in that particular scenario.

It sounds like she read the situation well and (somehow!) managed to stay calm enough to think rationally about the safest way to get away from him, I think that's pretty impressive and shows she's listening to her instincts and knows how to keep herself safe. That won't stop you worrying of course and I do hope the police can catch him and the uni can step up security

Wow, she did so well. Sounds like she did exactly the right thing, because she got out safely.

In her situation I'd try to make sure I wasn't out on my own at night for the next while. Can she get a colleague to accompany her on her way home, for example? Change her shifts? Get security to be there when she gets home until she's safely indoors?

Also, I'd be raising the alarm in general among young women in the area. Is there a student union, newspaper, etc?

thanks everyone.

I spoke to her today, 101 still haven’t called her back so I said she should ring again. The uni security isn’t brilliant, they sort of patrol around the accommodation, the green areas and there’s a few bars and things as well. She won’t change her work shifts and so will be coming back by herself still, however this apparently happened at only 10.15 in the evening, not the middle of the night as I suspected.