Carnage criticised by MPs, NUS and the Police
Carnage has come under fire from the NUS, MPs and police after they label the organised pub crawls ‘degrading’. Unions from 17 universities have banned Carnage from promoting their events with five more soon following.
Outrage spread across the country after a drunk student was pictured urinating on a war memorial. 19-year-old Phillip Laing from Sheffield Hallam University now faces jail after pleading guilty to ‘outraging public decency’.
Vice-president of NUS, Richard Budden told The Observer: “There is an acute and real danger to students who get caught up with these nights, not to mention the danger to members of the local population.”
Carnage say they are committed to ensuring the safety of students. They claim on their website they ‘have operated the Carnage UK Student Event right across the country for almost half a decade without incident’.
Budden added: “An increasing number of campuses want to see the end of these events and are doing all they can to stop them by prohibiting ticket sales and banning all publicity. They take students on pub crawls that degrade the participants, put students’ welfare at risk and lead to antisocial behaviour. They make their money and then disappear, leaving student unions, police, and sometimes even the hospitals to pick up the pieces.”
Katie Taylor, a 2nd year at Portsmouth said she loves Carnage: “It’s always a really good laugh, and probably one of my favourite nights out. I can understand that for some students it might affect their behaviour but surely any normal night out would do the same. I think to ban Carnage would be a really negative thing, it’s no different to a normal night out, same drinks, same clubs, just people wearing the same tops.”
She added: “Me and my friends absolutely love it and have never been involved in any problems with Carnage and the people who go to it.”
But Luke Hauser, also a 2nd year student, thinks Carnage can have a different effect: “I’m worried about the fact that people who go to Carnage are herded about and so people drink quickly and that leads to them becoming drunk quicker.”
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