HUNDREDS of coronavirus cases in Oxford can be traced back to wild student parties.

In September, a shocking video revealed hundreds of selfish students completely ignoring social distancing rules in a huge party at Oxford Brookes University.

More than 100 freshers were filmed breaking the Covid-19 guidelines outside the Cheney Lane Student Accommodation in Headington.

The video, which was seen by this paper, pans across five student blocks at the ‘village’ with a sea of people rammed on the courtyard.

At the time the university admitted that the students were responsible for a ‘small but growing’ number of cases in the city.

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In an email to its neighbours, the university’s chief operating officer Brendan Casey wrote that the spread was because of social gatherings ‘off campus’.

But when the university was presented with the video, in a new statement, a spokesperson said: “We are aware that large numbers of students have been gathering outside our halls of residence.

“Such behaviour will not be tolerated and we are working with Thames Valley Police to ensure that appropriate, robust action is taken against those involved.”

The following week an outbreak of 30 coronavirus cases at Oxford Brookes was recorded.

Partying students at Oxford Brookes

Partying students at Oxford Brookes

A councillor in Marston, Mick Haines, shared an email with us from the university which said: “As of 9am on September 23 there have been a total of 30 covid-19 cases at Oxford Brookes over the last seven days.

“The majority of these cases have been traced back to social gatherings.”

That same week the university answered safety criticism at a coronavirus crisis meeting, which we attended.

Ian Wright, the head of operations at Oxford City Council, addressed the parties and said the council were carrying out inspections at places like Headington’s White Horse Pub – where students are known to congregate – to check if people were following the 10pm curfew and ‘rule of six’.

He said there had been ‘a lot of data sharing’ between the council, police and university to shut down house parties at flats where there had been ‘ongoing’ problems.

Oxford Brookes tested students with symptoms and revealed the number of those who were infected in weekly updates until Christmas – when most students returned home for Christmas and were ordered to stay there as England went into the third national lockdown on January 4.

A week after the party at halls, pictured above, there were only 67 confirmed coronavirus cases in the city of Oxford and the university admitted that 47 of those were students.

Two weeks later that number had more than doubled when 100 new cases were confirmed in the seven days to October 2.

The following week 96 coronavirus tests came back positive at the university and by October 16 the number of new cases had dropped to 68.

In one of the last updates before the 'student travel window' there were 10 new coronavirus cases.

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