Last Saturday, a Freshers’ bop at St Catharine’s College ended with members of the JCR escorting students from the premises, after staff were treated rudely and college property was broken.

The bop, advertised on Facebook as an opportunity for “the fresh (and not so fresh) to wave goodbye to summer with a splash”, prompted an email to be circulated among JCR members criticizing behaviour, both by college members and non-college guests.

In the email, which was sent on Monday, JCR committee members reported that “college bar staff were spoken to in a very rude and aggressive manner” and “college property was damaged due to students throwing glasses and one person breaking a light”.

Members of the College’s JCR and Freshers’ Committee had to “escort attendees out of the bar”, and were “verbally abused and harassed” while attempting to do so.

Muhammed Khan, the Catz JCR President, affirmed that this behaviour, while there was “no justification” for it, resulted from drunkenness rather than any genuine desire to intimidate, insult or harm anybody. He emphasised that incidents of this kind are “not normal for Catz”.

The email sent out to students was signed by the JCR President and both of the College’s Freshers’ Reps, who said that the events were not a reflection of the attitudes of most students at the college, but stressed that “being disrespectful to staff in college is unacceptable”.

Following the events, the JCR decided to cancel the next scheduled bop, so that they can “find out what went wrong” and avoid future incidents. As well as investigating what happened, the dean has requested the JCR compile a report and create a risk assessment for future college bops and parties.

In the email sent to students, the signatories noted that they “want to provide a fun and inclusive environment for everyone” and that they “believe Catz is able to achieve this”.