In the October of last year, the public and students up and down the UK were made aware of the prevalence and pervasiveness of spiking amongst the student population. It is important to note that men and members of LGBTQI+ community are affected by spiking attacks. But I will be focusing on female students as they are the individuals who are disproportionately affected by spiking crimes.
The concerning spiking ‘epidemic’ rife amongst female university students, became headline news when it came to light that an alarming number of female students were being spiked in a new way via inoculation (needles). This new form of violence against women attracted media coverage and thus highlighted the urgent need for action and change to eliminate such violent premeditated attacks taking place on female students.
Yet, drink spiking has been in existence and has been happening within the industry for the past 20 or 30 years. It is not a new phenomenon. However, needle spiking arose in October 2021 with a significant number of women being the victims of such horrific attacks. Although the data that was produced about the crime can never truly reflect its widespread issue across the UK, the percentages below do shed light on how needle and drink spiking disproportionately affected and continues to target women.
Since the numerous attacks in October, data released in April 2022 revealed that: ‘females account for 88% of needles spiking victims, and where the victims age is recorded, 73% are aged 18 to 21. Where occupation of the victim is identified, 81% were students’.
As many of us will remember, it became the sad and terrifying truth that nearly everyone knew someone who had been directly affected by spiking. Personally, I knew several people who were spiked, and I am sure that this is the majority’s story.
In the media, Nottingham was spotlighted as being one of the cities with the rifest spiking problem. As a female student of Nottingham, having your own university city mentioned as being the epicentre of spiking attacks made the situation all the more real and possible that it would happen to myself and my friends.
On Wednesday 27th October the group ‘Girls Night In’ organised the boycott of Nottingham’s night-clubs and bars, in response and protest of the continuing issue of spiking amongst female students. Many participated in this political stance. The message was clear: change needs to take place and attention must be drawn towards the ever-present gender-based violence women continue to face and live in conjunction with.
Although ‘Girls Night In’ carried with it a powerful message of female autonomy and voice, this stance and spotlight of female voice and rebellion was skewed by the decision of many nightclubs in Nottingham to close their doors on the night of the boycott. Not in an act of solidarity (as they claimed) but for business reasons. In effect, the impact of the boycott was felt by students but not by those of power and responsibility.
The rise and surge of injection assaults led to petitions for government to take action and tackle the crimes of gender-based violence. In April 2022 The House of Commons Committees produced a report to the government which stated three steps of action the government must enact such as: ‘more or improved measures in/around premises’, engaging ‘with night-time industry, the education sector, and the health sector to produce a national anti-spiking communications campaign’, finally supporting victims and facilitating the reporting of spiking. In May 2022, the government responded by stating that they had established ‘a new working group involving university bosses, police, campaigners and other experts’, who would be working collaboratively to ‘help [them] gain a better understanding of the issue’.
Moreover, in October 2021 The University of Nottingham released a statement saying: ‘We are working closely with Nottinghamshire Police and city’s nightlife venues to monitor, review and learn from incidents and experiences in the city centre’.
In response to negative press coverage, night-time venues in Nottingham released statements on their Instagram in response to spiking reports: ‘we have implemented a search system […] metal detectors; anti-spiking bottle stoppers and protective drinks covers available free of charge’, a welfare room had been created, increased numbers of enhanced searches on entry, increased security, specialised staff trained to deal with spotting and reporting spiking. Although such safety and security measures were a step in the right direction, it is highly questionable whether such venues implemented measures and released statements for the sake of their image and face, as opposed to doing such things out of genuine care and the desire to protect individuals against spiking attacks.
So, I’ve stated the immediate response that the university, the government and night clubs took. But are these strict measures still in place? Are the people at the top still striving to keep female safety a priority and to condemn gender-based violence? Or has the issue of spiking been forgotten and brushed under the carpet?
Well, I would argue yes to the latter. Spiking is definitely no longer a priority or primary concern for night clubs, this is obvious through the retraction of metal detectors and thorough on entry pat-downs.
At the end of last term and the start of this term I have seen a much more laxed and half-hearted approach towards checking people, compared to the checks which were being done at the peak of spiking and notably high media coverage. Inside clubs, bottle stoppers and protective covers are not on display. Even if they are still available, they are not visible. I think that there is a clear discontinuity between the measures in place one year ago to the security measure present now.
Yes, there are still members of security in such venues, there always has been. However, the significant and effective safety and security measures employed to tackle both needles and drink spiking (i.e., anti-spiking bottle-stoppers and metal detector checks) around this time last year have failed to remain. Moreover, the venues’ social media since the spiking period has failed to acknowledge the past or try to inform and reassure its customers what is being done to ensure they are carrying out their duty of care.
I am sure that many of us are aware that spiking is a complex and difficult issue to irradicate. Night clubs have to do as much as they possibly can to protect women from acts of violence by implementing stiffer security measures.
Moreover, this goes for institutions, as Lisa Roberts states (August 2022) in the practice note given to universities: ‘The entire higher education community needs to understand […] universities can help be part of the solution’ of spiking. I think one significant piece of information the practice note attempts to highlight to universities, that the problem of spiking is situated with the perpetrators, not the victims. They should work on their anti-spiking campaigns and the language they use, avoiding tropes such as: “crime prevention”, “don’t leave you drink unattended” and “be aware of what is going on around you”. All of which can be seen as ‘victim-blaming’ passing the responsibility onto the individual who has been attacked.
Whilst a lot of it is about systematic change, we still have a significant role to play. We must carry on raising our voices, our desire for change and our dissatisfaction towards violence and against crimes that disproportionately affect women.
Thanks for reading!
**Reclaim The Night Nottingham protest march taking place on 22nd October 2022. Link with for information: