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A UCD Medical Student who was the victim of image-based sexual assault has issued a statement declaring, “I am not a reputational issue for UCD - I am a young student whose life has been shattered”.
Last week, The University Observer reported that Ruth Coppinger TD told the Dáil that UCD had failed “to safeguard against image based sexual assault” after an image of the student who had been raped was sent to staff emails and student groupchats. The image of the student, who in her own words was “naked, bruised, and lifeless” in the image, was sent into a UCD Medicine group chat with over 300 students, as well as to a number of UCD staff email addresses.
Now, following UCD commenting to the media about the story over the weekend, the student has issued a statement.
The full statement is as follows:
As the victim referred to, my response confirms the statement issued by the UCD Students’ Union. Being raped was life changing. UCDs lack of support has been life shattering. I am deeply disappointed by the University’s handling of this matter. Throughout this traumatic experience, I have felt profoundly alone and unsupported by UCD and its School of Medicine. It feels as though I –a young student whose life had been upended and who desperately needed support, was forgotten by UCD and that the photograph taken of me on the worst night of my life, which was then widely published, became the focus of UCD in its attempts to minimize reputational damage. I have been left to cry my eyes out alone, carrying the weight of what happened and feeling that my University and some of its staff and students failed me.
I have always felt responsible for what happened to me. The fact that UCD has made public statements about this matter in recent days, before reaching out to me directly, has left me feeling anxious, afraid and completely humiliated. In my view, it is devastating that they chose to comment publicly about this deeply personal traumatic experience, yet in their statements offered no words of solidarity or direct support to me. To my knowledge, there has been no offer of an internal investigation by UCD, no transparency about what actions were taken, no accountability for what I perceive as repeated failures that left me exposed and retraumatised, and no indication that, if the person circulating the image is ever identified, they will face serious consequences such as expulsion. From my perspective, I have been left to navigate the consequences of this horrific violation alone, while UCD continues to publicly comment on my trauma.
I was not contacted by the School of Medicine when the image first circulated in 2025, nor when it resurfaced in November 2025. While the University chose to meet with class representatives about these incidents, I was neither informed of nor invited to those meetings; I learned about them through my peers. Students have expressed to me that, in their view, UCDs disappointing response to this matter, reflect what they feel is a wider culture within the University: a tolerance towards sexual violence, and a prioritisation of protecting the reputation of the University over the welfare of its students.
My fellow students and I remain deeply disappointed that, despite public declarations, senior management has not taken what we believe would be the simple, human step of meeting with me. I personally asked the relevant members of UCD management to take that first step toward truly supporting those affected by sexual and gender-based violence by meeting with me. That request was refused. While the WhatsApp image circulation occurred within the School of Medicine, I was not offered a meeting with the School until recently. My subsequent request that the School of Medicine support my ambition to meet with senior UCD management remains unacknowledged by the School. The School of Medicine EDI unit also did not respond to my request for support. Each time I asked for help and was let down, I lost a little more faith - until I eventually learned to stop asking.
The image in question was taken after I was brutally raped. The pain of looking at this image, my naked, bruised, and lifeless body, is unbearable. This image was repeatedly circulated to UCD staff from April to Summer 2025. Despite being assured that measures were in place to prevent it from appearing in UCD email inboxes, the image was later sent directly to my own student inbox. Receiving it through the very institution where I study was, for me, soul-destroying. Each time that image resurfaced - whether among staff, students, or in clinical group chats - it retraumatised me. Knowing that staff possessed this image for over a week without contacting me is something I personally struggle with. Feeling that some of my fellow students may have been involved in the circulation of this image will always deeply upset me.
While seeing the image was deeply distressing, reading the accompanying comments was equally, if not more, traumatic. The messages included comments suggesting that I should be drugged and raped again. Other messages described me as “a real cocky lil slut”. One message claimed that “everyone is laughing at u stupid crying complaining b***h,” and another said, “IM NOT GOING ANYWHERE TILL UR HANGING IN A TREE” .
This experience has brought my world to a halt. The trauma is immeasurable, and UCD’s silence has left me feeling isolated and completely ashamed. I feel as though I am no longer wanted as a student at UCD. While I feel deeply let down by UCD on every level, I remain hopeful that no other student pursuing their dream of medicine will ever have to endure what I have. I feel as though UCD no longer wants to support my ambition to become a doctor because of the public interest the circulation of the photograph of me has attracted. I can only hope that UCD ensures no other student’s dream is destroyed in the same way. In my view, the only “zero tolerance” within UCD and its School of Medicine is towards students speaking out.
I am not a reputational issue to be managed by UCD - I am a young student whose life has been shattered and whose dream of becoming a doctor has been destroyed. I hope that it is remembered that on the other side of all this is a young girl who was just trying to achieve her dreams of becoming a doctor.
The Dublin Rape Crisis Centre is available via its national 24-hour helpline at 1800 77 8888.
Women’s Aid helpline is available at 1800 341 900.