Sexual Assault

The sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are being felt on New Hampshire's college campuses.

At the University of New Hampshire, faculty and students staged a #BelieveHer walkout in support of survivors this week.

Amy Culp runs the Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP) at UNH. She says the Kavanaugh hearings have had ripple effects on campus:

A new report details allegations of sexual misconduct by ten former members of St. Paul's School faculty, including David Pook, a former teacher who pled guilty to witness tampering in a case related to his alleged relationship with a student.

A new UNH study looked at how well college personnel understand sexual assault and rape reporting regulations.

Researchers called Title IX offices, which oversee gender equality issues, and campus police at more than one hundred and fifty colleges around the country.

A former St. Paul’s student has filed a federal lawsuit against her alma mater, alleging the Concord private school did not protect her from sexual assault and harassment from male students in 2013-2014.

The former student, who enrolled at St. Paul’s in 2012, is not named in the lawsuit, instead referred to as Jane Doe.

We look at a lawsuit brought by two alumni against St. Paul’s School, saying the school failed to protect them from sexual abuse by faculty members in the 1960s and 70s. Their lawsuit calls the Concord prep school a “haven for sexual predators” that has failed to protect children for decades.  We also examine a recent agreement between the private school and the Concord Police Department about reporting sexual assault.

St. Paul’s School is now required to report any allegations of sexual assault to the Concord Police Department, according to an updated agreement between the college prep school and local police.

A group of lawmakers from both parties are trying to fix a loophole in New Hampshire’s sexual assault law that allowed a former law enforcement official to evade charges that he raped an inmate who he was driving across the state last year.

  The New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed a bill aimed at protecting inmates from sexual assault.

The bill was filed in response to a case in which a deputy sheriff had sex with a female inmate he was transporting to prison. He was convicted of rape under a law that prohibits sex between prisoners and those with director authority over them, but the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction because he was employed by the county sheriff, not the prison or jail.

St. Paul’s School in Concord is settling a civil lawsuit brought by the family of a former student, Chessy Prout, who was a 15-year-old freshman at the elite boarding school when she accused then senior Owen Labrie of sexually assaulting her.

Allegations of sexual misconduct involving three professors in the Psychological and Brain Sciences Department at Dartmouth College do not relate to the professors' treatment of human research subjects, according to the college.

Researchers at the University of New Hampshire will spend the next year developing a program to train  students on how to respond to peers when told about incidents of sexual violence.

Phillips Exeter Academy and the Exeter Police Department have announced a new agreement concerning the reporting of sexual assaults on campus.

A new memorandum of understanding between the prestigious prep school and the local police department outlines procedures they say will help keep students safe from abuse of all kinds.

Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas is suing a former alderman and a critic, saying he was defamed by their accusations that he covered up a sexual assault at a high school.

The lawsuit in Hillsborough County Superior Court targets former Alderman William Cashin and critic Jon Hopwood, who wrote to aldermen accusing Gatsas of "engineering a cover-up."

WMUR reports that the lawsuit says the men "knowingly made false allegations."

Police in New Hampshire are investigating reports of a sexual assault at a prep school with a history of sexual misconduct allegations.

Concord police say they opened an investigation at St. Paul's School on June 1 after a female student told a staff member she had been assaulted by another student. The Concord Monitor reports the police investigation remains open as of Wednesday.

Manchester school leaders and city officials are working on a policy that will spell out how information about crime and safety incidents is disseminated to parents and citizens.

This follows concerns over how information about a rape in one of the city’s high schools nearly two years ago was kept quiet until last week, when the perpetrator was sentenced to jail.

Two laws signed by Governor Sununu on Wednesday will limit certain legal arguments in sex crime cases.

Beginning January 1 of next year, a defendant can no longer argue in court that he or she did not know the age of a prostitution or human trafficking victim.

Additionally, Sununu signed a high profile bill strengthening the state’s so-called “rape shield” law. He explained the change would “ensure that the private and unrelated sexual history of sexual assault victims will not be used against them in any court proceeding.”

An investigation into sexual misconduct at St. Paul’s School in Concord has found substantiated claims of abuse involving 13 former faculty and staff. NHPR’s Peter Biello spoke with Cambridge attorney Eric MacLeish, who has experience litigating against institutions accused of sexually abusing children, and has been in touch with three alleged victims of sexual misconduct by St. Paul’s faculty and staff.