Survivor Ellie Wilson to give talk to empower Glasgow students

Justice reformer and sexual assault survivor Ellie Wilson will be talking to students in Glasgow tonight about how she changed policy in Scottish universities after being raped.

The former Glasgow University student, 26, became a victim of sexual violence inflicted by her ex-boyfriend while they were both studying at the university.

After taking her attacker to court and obtaining a guilty verdict, she has been campaigning to change the Scottish criminal justice system and working to combat gender-based violence in higher education.

Miss Wilson was angered by the things she saw wrong with the criminal justice system and is passionate about making the legal process victim-centric and trauma-informed.

“That emotion can be a really powerful motivator and I felt like I could be the person to fix these issues in the system,” she added.

After tirelessly campaigning for more than 18 months, Miss Wilson managed to get the enrolment policy changed at Scottish universities so students who have been offered places need to declare violent criminal charges.

Prior to this change, the 19 universities in Scotland did not require applicants to declare whether they have ever been convicted, expelled, or disciplined for sexual offences.

This meant that people facing charges were routinely permitted on Scottish campuses, and allowed perpetrators to re-enrol into other institutions as outcomes of cases were not revealed by universities.

This was the case for Miss Wilson’s attacker, who was allowed to enrol into another university to continue his studies while awaiting trial.

As a result of his attacks between December 2017 and February 2018, Daniel McFarlane was jailed for five years and placed on the sex offenders list.

The new policy requires potential students to reveal any unspent criminal convictions or if they are facing serious charges.

This new policy is applied to both the post-offer stage and annually at the re-enrolment stage.

Universities Scotland said that the change in policy was motivated by student safety and the work to prevent gender-based violence.

They want to balance this with “their belief in access” and “the powerful role that education can play in the journey of rehabilitation”.

However, the representative body also wants to make sure that universities do not put up barriers to education when “individuals have posed no risk to others”.

The talk is hosted by the Successful Women at Glasgow (SWAG) and Miss Wilson hopes that going back to speak at her university will invite further change.

On X she stated: “I hope by doing this I can show that we can find purpose in the pain we endure, and that historically women have been incredibly successful in utilising their own pain and subjugation for positive change.

“We are resilient, and there is not shame in being a survivor.”