I'm disabled. These photos are from the accommodation that I was left in - and because I complained, I was kicked out of Edge Hill University, Ormskirk.
It started with my doctor making it clear I needed catered accommodation. After a long period of trying to secure accommodation, I was almost made homeless by the staff despite the fact I was having visions of sleeping in bus shelters and had anxiety attacks. I was only given a room after the threat of media attention, and this is the state of the accommodation.
Not only was it self-catered, which wasn't appropriate, but it also suffered from loads of black mould (the photos only show some of it), rotting windows, and a silverfish infestation.
I had numerous anxiety attacks, and was harassed afterwards over a contract dispute. Then, after I complained, I was kicked out and banned from the campus - despite the fact that, due to the situation the University had put me in, I had become suicidal, and it was only the support of a friend who lived ON CAMPUS that saved my life.
Because of my friend's own medical condition, she wasn't able to easily meet me outside - Edge Hill University knew this, yet placed restrictions on seeing her that effectively banned me from seeing her, in a blatant breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 (freedom of assembly, right to respect for private and family life) and breach of the Equality Act 2010 (reasonable adjustments) - even though they knew this would increase my suicide risk.
I soon learned that the staff WANTED to encourage my suicide. If I was dead, I would be out of their way. For them, it would be problem solved. Sure, they would say the usual tripe about how they "never expected this to happen" and "tried to offer the student support" and make public false expression of sympathy, but behind closed doors, they would be happy.
So now, I have decided that I must expose them as much as I can. I write this with a heavy heart, as I have tried everything I can, in terms of courts, procedures, complaints, etc., to get this sorted out, but the University has no interest in fairness. And of course, I didn't want to share personal information on a public website.
But considering the fact they have not just affected me, but other students, and I have given them so many chances to be fair from the outset of the problems - from trying to negotiate (they were never interested), involving my MP's office, to involving a community rep. from Unite the Union, to legal action, it's important that I now expose them so other potential students know what they're like.
It is because of my strong interest in justice that I asked other students for their experiences. I received a number of very distressing accounts from students who had been mistreated. From a student with autistic spectrum disorder who was harassed, to a student who was threatened with being killed yet the accommodation team refused to help her.
So considering all of this, which helps explain why Edge Hill University has dropped numerous places in the league tables, it's time I showed who the people run the place really are.
