'Rape culture' allegations shocking and abhorrent, says Williamson

UK education secretary Gavin Williamson has promised "appropriate action", after allegations of sexual abuse made by school pupils on a website became public.

"No school - whether an independent school or state school - should ever be an environment where young people feel unsafe, let alone somewhere that sexual abuse can take place.

"The allegations that I have heard in recent days are shocking and abhorrent," Williamson posted on Twitter.

The website Everyone's Invited, which was set up last year, has recorded 8,000 testimonies of sexual abuse from pupils.

The education secretary said any victim of "these sickening acts" should raise their concerns with someone they trusted, such as a teacher, family member or the police.

According to many of the accounts, allegations of sexual harassment are carried out against young women by young men who are with them at school, college, university, or part of the same social groups.

After the online allegations, independent schools such as Highgate School and Dulwich College have promised to initiate action, but the site's founder Soma Sara said "rape culture" was a problem for all schools.

The government said it is "particularly shocking" to hear these allegations made about places of education "where everyone should feel secure and be protected".

The Department for Education, the Home Office and the National Police Chiefs' Council were in touch with the Everyone's Invited website to provide support, protection and advice, a government spokesman said.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: "There's got to be an inquiry and it has got to get going very fast, this is serious."

He called for "cultural change in terms of behaviour in our schools and in our young people, but also in the respect that is shown particularly for women and girls".