Student raped: University reviews safety concept
The suspected employee of a security company had previously been conspicuous for a sexual offense, but was apparently not sufficiently checked. This will now have consequences.
Munich University of Applied Sciences (HM) has announced that it will review its security concept after a 22-year-old female student was raped early Friday morning. On Thursday evening, the woman visited a study room in Lothstraße in Neuhausen to study. During the evening, she became exhausted and lay down on a couch and fell asleep. The 25-year-old employee of a security service discovered her there at around 5.30 on Friday morning. According to the police, the man lay down next to the sleeping woman, began to perform sexual acts on her and eventually raped her.
The student went to the first floor of the building to meet an acquaintance after the suspected perpetrator had disappeared. He informed the police about what had just happened to her. The police managed to arrest the security guard at the scene of the crime. It was established that he had previously been “noticed” by the police for exhibitionism.
On Tuesday, the university announced that it had no knowledge of the man’s past, otherwise he would not have been hired. He had worked for a company that deals with facility management and also offers security services. Employees are screened by the company according to their assigned duties. To our knowledge, no checks were carried out on the suspected perpetrator.
No checks are carried out by the university itself on employees of external companies unless there is a specific suspicion or cause. It is the responsibility of the contracted company to employ only trustworthy employees in accordance with the legal requirements. According to the trade regulations, employees of security services must prove their reliability. Normally, reliability is refused for crimes against sexual self-determination, but only if the offense was committed less than five years ago. It was not possible to determine on Tuesday whether the man at the Munich University of Applied Sciences did so.
According to the university, talks were held on Tuesday with the external security company about possible consequences of the incident. It was agreed that in future HM will only accept people with a valid police clearance certificate. This means that a separate check will be introduced, at least in relation to the documents submitted by the service provider. It is important that any further deficiencies are rectified immediately during the review of the security concept.
