Student faces police investigation after university botched her complaint

A former student at King’s College London is facing a criminal investigation for defamation in Europe, after the college carried out an investigation beset with data breaches and delay.

After finishing a degree in her home country, Katy* moved to London for postgraduate study in 2022. But within months she became uneasy about her supervisor.

It took her more than two years to find the courage, but in April 2025 she lodged a formal complaint with King’s about his inappropriate behaviour – including handing her a hard drive containing sexual content, and bullying – which had a devastating impact on her mental health.

King’s took four months to launch an investigation, and another five months before informing Katy of the results. Meanwhile the college refused to set up a formal order barring the academic from contacting her.

In February 2026, shortly after the investigation concluded, Katy received a summons from authorities in her home country. Another academic with connections to King’s filed a complaint, leaving her accused of stalking, libel and slander, and facing the possibility of substantial fines or up to five years in prison.

“When I opened the letter, I was in shock,” Katy recalls. “I never thought this could happen, and felt completely left alone by the university.”

With her complaint unresolved for nine months, Katy was astonished to find she could follow the process at King’s by looking at the calendars of the people involved.

Calendar invites – fully accessible to anyone at King’s – included her full name and details about the investigation of her complaint. And it wasn’t just Katy’s personal information that was exposed in this way. These public calendars included the full name of students who had submitted a complaint to King’s and the topics of their complaints, as well as the names of staff members who had filed grievances or were part of human resources investigations, those who had taken legal action against King’s, those who applied for new positions or promotions, as well as agendas of executive board meetings.

In May 2026, after the conclusion of the investigation and an appeal by Katy, King’s accepted a number of failings and offered compensation of £3,070 – less than a fifth of the legal fees she has had to pay to defend herself in Europe.

More than a year after she made a formal complaint to King’s the academic is still in post, the European police investigation is still ongoing and Katy is still reeling.

“I still regularly break down crying,” she says, “I’m facing a huge legal bill, I barely sleep and I am unable to focus during normal office hours.”

A spokesperson for King’s said that it “cannot comment on individual cases” but that it takes allegations of misconduct “extremely seriously”. “We recognise the impact on those affected and are committed to handling each case sensitively, investigating thoroughly and taking appropriate action as promptly as possible,” it added.

In relation to the information available through staff calendars, King’s said that it takes confidentiality and privacy “very seriously” and that it has “several important policies and practices in place to uphold this”, including HR, IT and data protection policies which require staff to take “all reasonable steps” to safeguard data. The university added that all calendars are set to ‘private’ by default and managers are reminded to ensure that confidential meetings are marked private. King’s did not address how it intended to resolve the concerns we had identified. 

According to Dr Anna Bull, a senior lecturer at the University of York and a founding member of the 1752 group, Katy’s story is part of a wider issue of universities responding poorly to inappropriate behaviour by academics.

“Instead of protecting a student, King’s have left her traumatised,” Bull said. “And now she’s being pursued by the police. Students like Katy are powerless in the face of their universities when they fail to keep them safe. It is unacceptable that universities can still get away with failing students who have been subjected to unacceptable conduct.”

In 2024, the Office for Students found that more than four in ten students had experienced sexual harassment in a university setting in the past year (PDF). And a study from 2023 found that 7% of students who experienced sexual harassment said it was from a member of academic staff.

Good Law Project have been helping women speak out when universities fail to take complaints about academics seriously. It’s time for universities to get their house in order and give women the support they need.

*We’ve changed Katy’s name to preserve her anonymity.