21st February, 2020

Dear Reverend Morris, In some ways you and I are alike. We are both people of faith and we both have a daughter in her twenties. However, there is one point on which we differ significantly for I am the mother of one of the women involved in the sexual assault case brought against student D in 2018.

When my daughter began her university life at Trinity Hall, I was proud but at the same time a little anxious. However, I was reassured by the knowledge that she would be in an institution with a certain level of duty of care towards her. My daughter made the most of the years she spent in Cambridge. But the case within college left a deep scar. It is hard enough as a mother to hear what has happened to your daughter but when I discovered that her testimony was not believed by those in authority into whose care I had entrusted her I was deeply disappointed, if not disgusted. I always felt that the college authorities dealt with this case disgracefully but it is only now that I realise quite how disgracefully. Whereas I support the right to a full defence of anyone who faces accusations, I also believe that those who bring such accusations should be treated with sensitivity and have the right to expect that they would be given a fair hearing. I would also like to think that the process would not be contaminated by the involvement of a college official who was themselves under investigation for a similar accusation, and who had a close relationship with the accused.

Trinity Hall has failed many young men and women, both current students and alumni, in the way in which this case was handled and by the college not taking a stand on behalf of the women who were assaulted. It is my opinion that by exonerating student D in this shabby way and not approaching the complainants about revisiting this case, you are complicit should he continue this pattern of behaviour against other women. I call on you to resign as you have failed in making the safeguarding of the young people under your care your most important priority.

I wonder if you have ever asked yourself how you would feel if one of the complainants had been your own daughter. Could you look back on this case and draw the conclusion that everything had been done to protect her and to give her justice? I cannot help but think that in that scenario you would feel exactly the same as I do. That her college had failed her.

Yours sincerely,