Europe

Evidence of a successful lobbying campaign by campus security officials emerged in an email written last August by Oliver Curran, the chair of the Association of University Chief Security Officers (Aucso), a professional body with members at more than 140 UK universities.

In the note to Aucso members, obtained by Liberty Investigates and shared with the Guardian, Curran wrote that he had met Universities UK, the body that represents vice-chancellors, after visiting a security conference in New Orleans.

He wrote: “I was extremely interested when I attended the [US campus law enforcement] conference on how they were handling the encampments and what lessons they had learnt.

“One of the first things I did when I returned to the UK was to approach [university vice-chancellors] and asked that they continually provide the UK Aucso members with the support we require. The responses were extremely reassuring.”