West Yorkshire Police have launched a new sexual consent campaign around university, following off sexual assault cases earlier this year.

The poster, displayed around campus to coincide with fresher’s week, uses the slogan ‘Consent means yes, anything else could mean prison.’

Speaking to The Gryphon, university police officer PC Matt Guy said “We designed the poster, with consultation from various officers and student groups to make sure the messaging and imagery was impactive and appropriate for the audience.

We particularly tried to make sure that the poster didn’t blame the victim and also didn’t assign a gender to either the victim / perpetrator.”

He went on to stress that this poster scheme was only part of an extensive effort to tackle sexual harassment and assault

“This one poster forms a small part a planned response to these issues that West Yorkshire Police is currently working on; we are putting together a one million pound four-year bid around effective project work to tackle issues linked to these crimes.

Leeds University Student Union, Exec and myself had our latest meeting this week in continuing to roll out and develop the  “We’ve Got Your Back” and “I heart” campaigns so that they can specifically target issue we have highlighted”

The campaign comes after an Essex police poster campaign was petitioned by students for removal due to the victim blaming nature of their message.

Jessica Murray

 

(Image: www.twitter.com/WestYorksPolice)