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Clive
When Concrete Met Brexit, Trident and why students shouldn't feel ignored
16 9 God Save The Queen?
Concrete debates the role of the monarchy in the modern world
>>Trump Talk
The first installment of our new column
31st January 2017 Issue 334
Burger-lar faces union suspension
The official student newspaper of the University of East Anglia | concrete-online.co.uk
Caitlin Doherty
Deputy Editor Five students have been caught shoplifting from the campus shop in two days, following a clampdown on missing stock. Stricter monitoring, including greater use of CCTV, was introduced at the start of the semester after shop staff noted unusually high amounts of missing stock during two consecutive stocktakes. Several possible causes were investigated, including staff theft and incorrect stock taking, however, shop floor theft was found to be the most likely cause. Thefts have included a postgraduate student caught on CCTV stealing a burger, and a student leaving the shop without paying for hot drinks. One shoplifter was stopped by a student staff member after walking out of the shop without paying for a sandwich. On two separate occasions, students were stopped by members of staff with bags full of groceries that they had not paid for. All of these incidents have been referred to the Union Code of Conduct pending a full investigation, and they will also be referred to a disciplinary panel. Following the verdict of the disciplinares, thieves will likely face temporary bans from SU activities, including participation in clubs and societies and access to
the bars and LCR. It is possible that more serious cases will be referred to the University. Sanctions may involve students being suspended. Commenting on the incidents, Campaigns and Democracy Officer, Amy Rust said: "we are doing all that we can to try and reduce prices in the shop, and one of the thing that will help is reducing our losses on stock. We’ve improved things behind the scenes, but our shrinkage is too high on the shop floor, which is why last week we installed cameras and employed extra monitoring measures to eradicate shoplifting.” "So far we’ve caught at least a couple of people every day, and while we take this very seriously we also want to make sure to sit down with the students in question and determine why this happened in the first place. Sanctions could include a temporary ban from SU facilities (as happened recently in the Jo Swo case), or in more serious cases, a referral to the University disciplinary process.” Commenting further regarding welfare concerns, Jo Swo, SU Welfare, Community and Diversity Officer said: "Obviously some of these cases also present health and welfare concerns. We acknowledge that one of the main problems for students is the cost of living on campus, which is why we are working closely to ensure students caught that are in difficulty always get the help that they need.”
Page 4: Queen Elizabeth visits Sainsbury Centre
Norwich welcomes Syrian refugees Amanda Ng & Emily Hawkins Senior News Reporter & News Editor UEA students, alongside many other Norwich residents, will warmly welcome the first Syrian refugees being resettled to Norwich. Welcome efforts have
been underway following Norfolk County Council’s (NCC) decision to accept Syrians fleeing the country in the summer, and will include multiple campus-based efforts to help the first five families arriving in early February. Norwich will offer sanctuary to the refugees as part of the government’s pledge to resettle an
overall 20,000 Syrians fleeing from civil war over the next five years through the Syrian Vulnerable Person’s Resettlement Scheme. The final decision to accept 50 Syrians and pay for the longterm costs of resettlement was made by the county council in July 2016. The vote was 64 to six, with one abstention. There was some
opposition, particularly from UKIP councillors, with the group leader calling the result "the tip of the iceberg”. However, Cliff Jordan, Leader of the NCC, said Norfolk had "a long tradition of extending the hand of friendship to those in need." Norfolk County Council will be providing a specialist team to help
smooth the process of resettling refugees into council homes in the Greater Norwich area. From the early days of the refugee crisis, Norwich has shown strong support to Syrians. In 2015, various initiatives spawned on Continued on page 3