A former student from the embattled St Paul’s College has come forward with allegations of brutal hazing rituals at the elite University of Sydney institution.
The anonymous student spoke to News Corp, outlining various rituals that incoming first-years experienced during his time there, one of which saw them forced down onto all fours and beaten with thongs.
In another, they were made to push a mattress up a hill as seniors tackled them, a process that reportedly resulted in frequent injuries and broken bones.
A third ritual, allegedly known as ‘Inbound / Outbound‘, saw freshers transported to random, far-away locations by older peers and forced to make their way home, often without shoes or money.
Detailing his own experience, the anonymous student said that he avoided the college’s main dining hall after being abused there on his first night, and as a result, he became known as a ‘phantom fresher’. He explained:
“Every year there is a ‘phantom’. They find someone who responds by withdrawing and they become like prey they can play with. They demolish those people … I’d come back to my room and people had broken in and pissed in my bed. Another time they poured beer over all my notes.”
The student became so frightened that he eventually took to sleeping with a sharpened steel object under his bed, and says the experience left him so scarred that he attempted suicide after dropping out of university.
Stuart Kelly, the younger brother of one-punch attack victim Thomas Kelly, briefly attended St Paul’s college in 2016, but only stayed there for one night before withdrawing.
Tragically, Kelly took his own life in July of last year. It is unknown whether he experienced similar hazing rituals, but he had become the target of bullying and hate-mail over his family’s perceived connection to Sydney’s lock-out laws.
These new accusations come just days after the university’s vice chancellor Michael Spence slammed the college for harbouring a “deep contempt for women”, and promised action would be taken.
Source: News Corp.
Photo: St Paul’s / Facebook.
