The Dean of Churchill College has condemmed the tabloid coverage of the College’s disciplinary reports as "distorting" and "sensational".

In a statement released to Varsity, Dr Priyamvada Gopal clarified that, contrary to reports in the Daily Mail and the Times of India, she did not "complain" to the College following an incident in which she was propositioned by a former student of the College. "A drunk former student who did not know me made some inappropriate remarks when I came down to investigate noise late at night."

She also made the point that she there was nothing unusual in the way she dealt with the incident. "I did not ‘complain’ to the College about the incident; I reported it in an annual report as part of my normal duties."

Dr Gopal categorically stated that reports of "harassment" and having to "reject" and "fight off" the advances of the student in question were completely unfounded, and has described the entire reaction by the British tabloids as "disturbing". The incident has generated a great deal of national and international press coverage, with the story being picked up by the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, as well as the Times of India and The Hindu.

Information regarding the disciplinary reports of Cambridge colleges was requested under the Freedom of Information Act as part of an investigation by the Tab. It seems that according to the records, Churchill, Clare and Sidney Sussex have had the highest recent rate of "student misdemeanours", with Churchill alone having recorded 91 incidents involving more than 100 students over the past five years.

The timing of the articles in the national media has appeared somewhat artificially engineered to coincide with student protests over the Government’s planned increase in university tuition fees, particular as the disciplinary records are now more than three years old.

Dr Gopal remarked "I found the timing bizarre. The Daily Mail carried the story the day before the protests and The Telegraph on the day of the protests. My suspicions were bolstered by readers’ comments which stridently denounce providing students like this with public funding."

In the context of the raising of university tuition fees and the violent outburst at last week’s student demonstrations, its appearance in the press has certainly managed to distract from the issue of tuition fees to the detriment of the student population, a concern that is shared by Dr Gopal.

"I am disturbed that the British tabloids have misused the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a report dating back so many years in order to deliberately discredit university students who are protesting today against cuts to the higher education budget."

Churchill JCR President Matt Boardman was also keen to stress that the media reports failed to reflect a realistic portrayal of college students.

"Most of the events mentioned in this article happened several years ago, and involved a very small and unrepresentative minority of Churchill students. The most recent Dean’s reports in Churchill show that disciplinary incidents are actually very infrequent.

"The Daily Mail article provided no context, and as was pointed out by readers in the online comments, no mention was made of the College’s strong performance in the Tompkins table this year. It’s possible that ‘Students Perform Well’ was not a sufficiently exciting headline."

He added "In light of the media’s treatment of the recent NUS protests in London, we can perhaps withhold our surprise."