i think the common theme that came up was that it was a pattern of behaviour. what worried people was that there was, in this instance, someone in a position of power who potentially had access to a lot of people who might be charmed and then would find themselves in situation where they were hearing things they didn t want to hear or potentially being touched in ways they didn t want to be touched. it felt like whac a mole. like, every time i felt like i d helped one person, or maybe closed off one avenue and offered support somewhere, something else popped up. four different women came to phoebe with complaints about paddy everingham. she says the university left it to students like her to support women and investigate the claims, without offering any formal help. even though there were people that i was sat in a room with every month who, you know, were involved in the university, like, leadership team, that i m sure they knew about it, they never reached out to us and said,
paid by the university. holly told us about a sailing club holiday to croatia in 2019 that paddy everingham was also on. i remember one evening, him making really, actually, just, like, derogatory comments about my bum again, but this was in a group situation where there s loads of people there, and itjust made me feel so uncomfortable. and, actually, there was a lot of complaints about him on that trip from different women. several women complained to the sailing club alleging he d behaved inappropriately, making them feel uncomfortable. as a result, the sailing club wrote to him, making him aware of the complaints, and refused him a spot on the following year s trip. paddy everingham told us he strenuously denied behaving inappropriately in croatia and that no action has been taken against him in respect of that trip. he says he was not given a reason for being left out the following year s holiday. holly says she initially didn t complain to the university
i said, can you please let me out? rachel says someone coughed loudly in another cubicle and she managed to get out. he stayed in the cubicle that we were in. he took his phone out and he exposed himself and started trying to video himself and trying to show it to me. i was really stressed, i didn t really know what to do. ijust, kind of, froze a little bit, almost, especially afterwards when i was out of the cubicle. ijust, kind of, stood in shock, not knowing where to go, like, not knowing what to do. i didn t want to be one of those people with a story, so ijust, kind of, ignored it until the rumours really started to go round and none of them were about me. and that s when i realised, like, this is really serious. in october that year, rachel reported it to the university, and an investigation was launched. around the same time, other women were raising concerns about paddy everingham s alleged behaviour. phoebe reilly was the welfare convenor for the sports association.
so, i made that complaint, and i was never contacted again by the university to say how the investigation went. so, you made your own complaint in 2020, and you never heard anything after that? i ve not heard anything else. despite the complaints, paddy everingham was allowed to continue in his role as gusa president on full pay until the end of his term. in fact, the university extended his contract by a further month. a spokesperson for the university of glasgow said it was unable to comment on individual cases, but takes all allegations of sexual misconduct or harassment extremely seriously . they said it was expanding its provision of confidential and personal support , including online reporting facilities . they added the university was providing more training for managers investigating. . . cases of harassment or misconduct . last week, lawyers for mr everingham served a writ on the bbc in a bid to stop us from telling these women s stories. because of the public int
thursday to defend the action. in the end, a sheriff dismissed everingham s claim on several grounds and found in the bbc s favour. in a statement, mr everingham told us an internal investigation was conducted within the university and he was not found guilty of any wrongdoings . he said that he strongly denies all of these allegations. back with nikki and jenn, and for the first time they re seeing the scale of the problem laid out before them. it s very overwhelming. ithink we ve. we ve gone through them bit by bit and actually visually seeing it, this isn t even everything. this box is barely empty. yeah, it s quite, quite hard.