Yahoo Finance Girls at Liverpool school told to wear shorts under skirts to prevent upskirting
Female students at a school in Liverpool have been told to wear shorts under their skirts to prevent any incidents of upskirting.
Broughton Hall Catholic High School in west Derby, Liverpool, has taken action following reports that a group of male students were caught taking photographs up the skirts of girls using a transparent glass staircase at the sixth-form canteen on Friday.
Students have now told the Liverpool Echo that as well as the advice to wear shorts, there may also be plans to install frosted-glass panels.
Former pupils claim there have been issues raised about the staircase for years, although the acting director of sixth-form reportedly told students in an email that they had only just been made aware of the problem.
One former pupil said a "group of lads" had been confronted for allegedly taking the pictures of girls on the stairs last week.
She said: "It has been a problem for a while. I know exactly what they are doing, when I used to sit near there if you looked up to see if your friends were coming you could sometimes accidentally see up someone's skirt.
"It used to make us really uncomfortable. We would ask if we could wear trousers but we were told no, we had to wear skirts.
"There were girls sent home for coming in with trousers on."
After the incident, acting director of sixth form Mrs K Hudson sent an email to sixth-form students saying their concerns would be listened to, according to the Echo.
The email, seen by the paper, said: "We have spoken at length with members of the student leadership team, and we have already put in place a working group to enable your concerns to be heard and put some measures in place to alleviate the problem.”
The email reportedly added: "Can I reassure you that this is the first time the issue has been raised with myself and it will be acted upon."
Headteacher Gerard Preston said the school is “really disturbed” to have been made aware of the alleged incident on Friday,
He added: "We are investigating this as a matter of urgency. The welfare of our pupils is paramount, and we will take any action that is necessary.”
