Students accuse Harold Cohen staff of giving out library ‘parking tickets’ while students attended the one minute’s silence

Library staff in the Harold Cohen at Liverpool University have been accused of giving out ‘parking tickets’ in the library while students attended a minute’s silence for the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Two students complained that they received tickets at around 11am this morning while students were attending the one minute’s silence in University Square in memory of the victims of the Manchester bombing. They labelled the staffs’ actions as ‘appalling’.

A student who attended the minutes silence, and fell foul of the parking ticket system, said: “We all left for the minutes silence at like 5 to 11. When we came back three of my friends had yellow parking tickets on their desks dated at exactly 11am so they obviously went round once people had left. Some library staff were even at the minute’s silence so they knew it was happening.”

The library replied to the tweeters by asking them to “come & speak to someone at the Help Desk about this”.

In the Sydney Jones library, an announcement was made at 10:30am detailing that there would be a minute’s silence in the library at 11am. Another announcement was then made at 10:59am, in preparation for the event. The library account also tweeted around three hours ago that the national minute’s silence would be held in the library.

The parking tickets system is used during the exam period at the University to prevent students from reserving desk space and computers by leaving possessions around the seating area without utilizing the space themselves. if a desk if left empty, a ‘ticket’ is placed by a member of staff on the desk recording the time the desk was unoccupied. If students don’t return within an hour, their belongings are removed from the desk so that other students can use it.

University Communications sent out an email this morning announcing that all staff and students were invited to meet in University Square to observe the silence in remembrance of those who lost their lives and those who were injured in Manchester on Monday. It also stated that students who were in exams at 11am would be given the opportunity to observe the silence at their desks if they wished,  and “an additional minute will be added to all exams which take place over the 11am period”.