Noor Hassan Barre, a 22-year-old man, died at hospital after suffering from a stab wound to the chest. The incident occurred on the 31st of October, during an event at Middlesex University.
Sodiq Adebayo, 21, from Ilford, and Kevin Mao, 20, of Tottenham, have been placed in custody to appear at Barkingside Magistrates’ Court, on the 5th of November.
A 21-year-old woman, and a 20-year-old man who were arrested in connection with the case yesterday, have been bailed to dates in December and November.
This incident has raised questions to staff and students if they feel safe on university grounds. Being a Middlesex student, the tragic loss to the boy’s life has not made me question my own safety, but it has created other concerns in my mind. For example, it is an open university, meaning anyone can walk on university grounds. If anything was to happen to me whilst walking from one building to the next, I would not hold the university’s security responsible, because the same thing could happen to me walking on another road. However, when I’m inside a building or a classroom, this is when I expect to be the most safe.
I am not entirely comfortable with knowing that the building doors open automatically for anyone, even if you don’t have a university ID card. The fact that non-students only have to open a door to get in, doesn’t make me entirely at ease either. As I say this to my classmates and teacher, a man we’ve never seen before opens the door. What if he came in to shoot us all down? Funnily enough, that man was a student and had an identification card round his neck. Which leads to an excellent point made by one of my classmates, ‘if I had the intention of hurting someone, it doesn’t matter what I use. I want to hurt you, no amount of security can stop that’.
The incident that happened on the 31st, and the security at the university cannot be linked together. For one, the accident happened at 01:10 in the morning, where there aren’t as many students around as the afternoon. Another student says ‘these attacks cannot be stopped no matter how much security, but it will make capturing the people easier and quicker’.
After the incident occurred, a Middlesex University spokeswoman said: ‘Fortunately, incidents such as these are rare at our university…’ Would it not be unfair to question security after just one incident?
People suggest more CCTV, more security on the grounds, stop and search etc. Whereas, I only suggest buildings and classrooms being secured with student/staff identification cards.
Yes, security needs to improve at Middlesex university, but will it still maintain the laid-back, and relaxing environment it has now?
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