UK universities must do more to combat spiking

After spending too long locked in their rooms during the pandemic, UK students are able to go out and party again. But many female students are heading back in – with a series of “girls’ nights in” planned across the country in response to an influx of “spiking” incidents.

They are speaking out about their experiences of having their own or a fellow student’s drink secretly laced with a substance or additional alcohol, with some reporting witnessing multiple episodes of spiking in one night. Students and other young people are often being forced to attempt to care for their peers amid long ambulance delays and/or confusion about how evidence can be collected to secure a conviction.

The spiking of drinks isn’t new, of course, and a range of ever more ridiculous and unreliable inventions have been designed to try to prevent it, such as a nail polish that changes colour when discreetly dipped into a drink if it contains anything untoward. Recently, lids for glasses or bottles have been actively promoted. One popular “use once only” stopper “glows in UV light so everyone can see that the drink has been protected”, according to its Amazon listing.

Quite aside from the environmental damage of single-use plastics, such approaches are yet another pressure on women to be responsible for “keeping themselves safe” (although it is worth noting that the most prolific convicted serial rapist in the UK – convicted of 159 sexual offences in which the “date rape drug” GHB is believed to have been used – offended against men).

It is difficult to know the true scale of drink spiking, although it is widely acknowledged that the incidence this year has been far worse than previously. However, a new type of spiking has recently become apparent that bypasses all of the so-called “safety” devices for drinks: that of “needle spiking”.

According to the National Police Chief’s Council, there were 56 confirmed incidents involving injections across September and October alone. Victims are generally injected in the back of the shoulder, lower back or leg, and it appears that women students are being particularly targeted – many on university premises.

Only a few arrests have been made so far and toxicology reports are ongoing, so it is still unclear whether these incidents are attempts to facilitate sexual assault, in the way that drink spiking is. Many victims report being incapacitated within minutes (although others have had few after-effects) and most attacks have taken place in very busy spaces – predominantly dance floors.

This is what happened to Sarah (not her real name) just last week. She was dancing with friends among 2,000 other students at a Students’ Union-run nightclub on a university campus, feeling good after two or three alcoholic drinks. She felt a sharp stab in the upper area on her back. She went to the toilet to look for a mark and started being violently sick, drifting in and out of consciousness and suffering loss of vision. “Everything was just black,” she told me.

Sarah’s boyfriend supported her home, but she continued to deteriorate, so he took her to hospital. Her memory of that time is hazy but she does remember another woman arriving who also said she had been spiked at the same student venue. Unfortunately, the hospital wasn’t able to test for any drugs and Sarah wasn’t keen to go to the police because of a previous negative experience of reporting a crime.

While she can’t be sure it was another student who drugged her, the venue is restricted to students, staff and their guests. Sarah feels that the university has not taken her experience seriously and that action at the venue has been limited to putting up some “warning posters”. She doesn’t feel able to return to the nightclub. “That should be the safe space,” she says. “Now that’s been taken away.”

This is a new form of violence against women, sweeping campuses in England, Scotland and Wales and creating a wave of fear. Sarah’s friends have talked about wearing thick coats or long sleeves when they go out, in the hope that it will prevent them being targeted. But there are few if any “safety measures” that individual women can take that will prevent them being assaulted.

Universities need to publicly acknowledge this. They should recognise formally that both drink and needle spiking are happening on university premises and are affecting female students in particular. They should be clear that spiking is never the victim’s fault, and that telling women what they should or should not do is an outdated crime prevention approach that perpetuates gender inequality and has no place in modern society.

What is more difficult, but equally necessary, is for universities to accept that people in our community – staff, students and/or their guests – are most likely committing these offences. While it is possible that some incidents are “copycat crimes”, there is also the real potential that this is a form of organised crime.

The conversation urgently needs to be had to connect not only the experiences of victims but the methods of perpetrators so we can improve surveillance and evidence-gathering. Universities must do all they can to prevent these sinister offences continuing. They must remove from their spaces anyone who perpetrates or in any way facilitates needle spiking – or any other form of violence against women.

Nicole Westmarland is professor of criminology and director of the Centre for Research into Violence and Abuse at Durham University.