By Katya Mira
Brighton and Hove Argus
30th November 2006
More than 80 students defied a court injunction to stage an overnight sit-in.
Post-graduates and undergraduates from the University of Sussex camped out in the Falmer campus library as part of the student union's Sort Us Out campaign to secure a better deal for students.
The university had secured an injunction to stop them but the protesters turned up at 9.30pm closing time and refused to budge until 9am the next morning.
They are complaining about poor catering services, rises in tuition fees and lack of contact hours with tutors.
Drama student Alice Pickering, 22, said: "We decided to go ahead with the action and risk the fact that they might take legal action against us.
"Recent changes mean that students could be charged up to £9,000 a year and we are very angry.
"People don't get grants like they used to and we all leave university with thousands of pounds of debts.
"It just makes it too hard to survive, especially in Brighton where it is so expensive. I fear that the student population will shrink or become full of rich kids unless something is done."
A university spokeswoman said it had a duty to serve the injunction to protect its staff and the financial running of the faculty. She said it had spent £20,000 on security, extra staffing and legal costs and library workers had had to stay on the premises all night to make sure the students were safe. She also said there had been constructive efforts to look into the students' concerns.
She said: "We are disappointed that a small group of students chose to ignore all opportunities for constructive discussion, and all the good and positive progress which has been made with the student union and instead undertook unlawful occupation which is actively damaging to the interests of students and staff."
The incident followed a protest in February and a vote of no confidence in university management a year ago.
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