What is bullying, harassment and hate crimes?

Bullying, harassment and hate crimes are never OK and could lead to disciplinary action by the University.

Know the signs of bullying, harassment and hate crimes

Bullying is harmful behaviour that intends to intimidate, hurt or insult someone. This often happens on a repeated basis. Bullying can be physical, verbal, non-verbal or take place online.

Harassment is when someone else’s unwanted behaviour makes someone feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or belittled due to protected characteristics like age, gender, race, belief or race.

Hate crimes are when any criminal acts are committed against someone based on their disability, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, and sexuality or transgender identity.

Signs of bullying

Signs of bullying can include:

  • Spreading harmful rumours about you
  • Insulting someone with words or behaviour
  • Publicly ridiculing or demeaning you
  • Treating you unfairly by excluding you or victimising you
  • Overbearing supervision or misuse of power that makes you feel uncomfortable

Signs of harassment

Signs of harassment can include:

  • Physical contact like touching, pushing, pinching, grabbing
  • Persistently asking to hang out even after you've said no
  • Sharing images or materials that could be considered offensive or image-based abuse
  • Making offensive comments or jokes about your disability, gender, ethnicity or religion
  • Threatening to out someone as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ+), or any other minority gender or sexual identity
  • Deliberately ignoring or excluding someone from a conversation or group

Signs of online bullying and harassment

Signs of online bullying and harassment can include:

  • Cyber stalking - repeatedly messaging or spying on someone online to frighten or intimidate them.
  • Spreading lies - posting or sending harmful and false things about someone to other people.
  • Exposing someone - sharing someone else’s private information without their permission.
  • Excluding someone - from group chats or online activities to make them feel left out.
  • Image-based sexual abuse - posting someone's intimate photos or videos online without their permission, often known as 'revenge porn’.
  • Internet pile-on - when a lot of people are encouraged to target one person and send them mean and overwhelming messages.
  • Impersonation - pretending to be someone else online.
  • Trolling - sending or posting nasty or controversial messages or comments to make people angry and start fights online.
  • Up-skirting - taking pictures or videos under someone’s clothes without their knowledge.

Examples of hate crimes

If someone is attacked because of their ethnicity, that's a hate crime. If someone is verbally abused because of their sexual orientation, that is also a hate crime.

With hate crimes, the offender is motivated by ‘who’ the victim is or ‘what’ the victim appears to be.

Hate crimes can manifest as physical attacks, verbal abuse, or actions that intend to incite hatred against a particular person or group based on their personal identity.

Types of hate crimes

Physical assault - Any kind of physical assault is a crime. Physical assault due to a perceived personal characteristic is a hate crime.

Verbal abuse - This involves using derogatory language, threats, or name-calling to demean someone based on who they are.

Incitement to hatred – This involves someone acting in a way that is threatening and hateful towards a particular group, whether that’s in person or online.

What is a hate incident?

A hate crime occurs when the law has been broken. If you have experienced a hate incident, even if the law hasn’t been broken, these can be reported to the police. Hate incidents are any hateful acts motivated by prejudice, and they have the potential to escalate into hate crimes.

Reporting hate crimes to local authorities

There are laws in place to support you. You can report it by calling 101 (non-emergency number), online or in person by visiting your local police station. See the steps for reporting to the police on the Metropolitan website. You can also reach out to Crimestoppers, a 24/7 independent charity service that allows you to report crimes anonymously.

No matter what's happened, if you believe you've been a victim of a hate crime or a hate incident, remember that your University is here to support you.

How the University reporting policy for bullying and harassment works

Did you know that a disclosure and formal report are different?

  • Disclosure: Telling someone at the University about your experience is known as a disclosure.
  • Formal report: Sharing information about your experience in order to instruct the University to take appropriate action is known as a formal report.

This means you can reach out to someone at the University and receive support without making a formal report if you don’t want to. The University can also support you in making a formal report.

The University takes your privacy seriously. Your personal information will be kept confidential unless there's a significant risk to you or others. The University usually only involves the police if the affected student agrees. In exceptional circumstances, if there's a serious safety concern to you or others, the University might have to report the incident.

Learn more about our Student Bullying and Harassment Policy.

What if you’re victimised?

Victimisation means treating someone poorly or unfairly because they’ve reported bullying or harassment, or someone thinks they might have. This is unacceptable behaviour and could lead to disciplinary action from the University.

Where to get support

If you feel like there is an immediate danger or threat to life, please call the emergency services on 999.

Report + Support

If you would like to report something to City, you can use our online reporting platform, Report + Support.

Report + Support makes it easier to confidentially report a wide range of issues so that we can best support you.

Use this tool to report a concern, an incident that occurred, or to make a disclosure about your own or someone else's safety and well-being.

Report a concern or incident

External support for victims of bullying, harassment and hate crimes

  • Victim Support - a 24/7 charity service dedicated to offering specialist and free support to victims of crime in England. Even if you haven’t reported the crime, you can still get support.
  • Galop - an anti-violence charity offering emotional and practical support for LGBT+ victims of sexual violence, hate crime or domestic abuse.
  • Tell MAMA – supports victims of anti-Muslim hate and monitors anti-Muslim hate incidents.
  • Community Security Trust - a charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism and related threats.
  • Samaritans - Whatever you’re going through you can call the Samaritans for free, any time.  They offer support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
  • The Mix - A charity offering free, confidential and anonymous support for under 25s. Whatever issue a young person is facing, The Mix is always there.
  • Forum+ - supports local LGBT+ victims of hate crime, hate incidents and discrimination.

Please see our Additional Student Support services page for a complete list.