Student suspensions are issued as a precautionary measure, to allow us to ensure the safety of everyone involved, or on campus, including the student who is suspended. They will normally be issued at the same time that an investigation is started into the circumstances, for example, through the Student Conduct or Fitness to Practise Procedures, or while a police investigation is undertaken.
When we issue a suspension, you will have the opportunity to provide information about the situation. This will be provided to the person or Incident Management Team who has made the decision, to see if this would change their decision.
When providing information about the situation, you are limited to submitting evidence that directly challenges the basis of the suspension. Specifically, you may only present information that demonstrates why the grounds for the suspension were incorrect or incomplete. For example, this could include evidence showing that you were not present at the location where the incident occurred at the time it happened.
The person who issued the suspension will not normally consider new information, or information which provides mitigation for why a situation occurred. For example, if you have breached University fire regulations, we may not consider information which demonstrates that you were unwell at that time. This is because, regardless of your health, the University has a duty to ensure the safety of the University’s campus and community.
When a suspension is issued, you will be notified of the opportunity to provide this additional information. Any information needs to be supported by evidence which meets the University’s expectations on standards of evidence.
Additional information must be provided to the Regulations and Compliance team within two weeks of the suspension being issued. The letter will explain how to provide this information.
Once the information is provided, the Regulations and Compliance team will assess whether it meets the requirements outlined above. If it does not, we will write to you to explain the reason why.
If the information provided meets these requirements, the person who issued the suspension, or appropriate nominee, will consider whether it would be reasonable to change the suspension. In doing so, they may decide to leave the suspension in place, to change the level of suspension or remove it entirely. In certain circumstances the person might decide to increase the level of suspension.
Once they have made a decision, a written decision will be sent to explain the decision, and the reason why that decision has been made. We will normally do so within two weeks of receiving all of the information.