Coronavirus: Party students may be 'fast-tracked' to exclusion

Footage of the party at St Peter's Court, Nottingham, was posted on social media

Students who break Covid rules could be "fast-tracked" to exclusion after police broke up a 200-strong gathering at a hall of residence.

Officers were called to the courtyard outside St Peter's Court - which houses University of Nottingham students - on Saturday.

Footage of the event was posted on Snapchat, but no arrests were made as the crowd dispersed as police arrived.

The university said there was "no excuse" for breaching guidelines.

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The party in Radford was one of several broken up by police across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire over the weekend.

The city and county are due to enter tier three restrictions, the highest Covid alert level, once the national lockdown ends on Wednesday.

A University of Nottingham spokeswoman said: "The overwhelming majority of students are following the rules and there are now just 16 cases of Covid-19 reported in a student population of 35,000.

"However, there is no excuse, we have been abundantly clear that where a minority breach Covid restrictions we will act.

"In addition to the fixed penalties issued by police, the university will take disciplinary action.

"In the most serious cases, students will be fast-tracked to the highest levels of our process where suspension and exclusion are potential outcomes."

Chief Constable Craig Guildford said many students were not grasping the gravity of Covid-19

The university confirmed figures obtained by The Guardian, which said 91 of its students had been fined a total of £58,865 with 672 disciplined.

A number of students in the city have been penalised by police, including four Nottingham Trent University students who were suspended and fined £10,000 each.

Nottinghamshire's Chief Constable Craig Guildford has previously called for some students to be expelled "as a deterrent".

In response to the latest events, he said: "Whilst such gatherings of young people may seem far removed from the well-being of mostly older people, they do hugely increase the risk posed to those people by spreading the infection far and wide.

"That's why we have been taking this issue so seriously and why we will continue to come down hard on people who break the rules."