WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Senior director at Durham University Andrew Harston, ‘used his position’ to gain trust of one victim and sexually assault her while under investigation for another attack
A senior director at Durham University has been jailed for 14 years for “predatory” sexual assaults on two women who he plied with drink and attacked while they slept after carrying them from their beds.
To the outside world Andrew Harston, 39, was a family man with strong religious faith who raised millions of pounds to help underprivileged students find a place at one of Britain’s top seats of learning. In reality he was a “sexual predator” who presents an ongoing danger to women, a court heard. Harston used his position as Director of Development and Alumni Relations to gain the trust of his second victim, and sexually assaulted her while he was under investigation for the first incident.
In both cases the women were drunk after Harston had given them alcohol and both were taken from their beds to be sexually assaulted. In the case of the first victim she was in a drunken sleep alongside her partner when Harston entered their room, carefully lifted her from her bed and committed serious sexual assaults on her while she lay on the floor.
Sentencing him to 14 years in prison at Teesside Crown Court, Judge Jonathan Carroll said there had been an element of planning in both of father-of-three Harston’s attacks.
He told him: “I accept there are two sides to your character. There is the decent, hard working, conscientious man, the family man image that you present to the public, the charitable, religious role you present to the world. But there is also the other dark side of you, the sexual predator in you. You lack insight and remorse and struggle to accept your responsibility in what you have done. You are and are likely to remain at high risk of further offences against women.”
Harston’s sexual assaults against the woman had “catastrophic consequences” for both, destroying both their professional and personal lives. They trusted him partly because of his highly paid role at Durham, in charge of global fundraising and engagement with the university’s 185,000 alumni around the world. He is credited with leading the first phase of the Durham Inspired campaign to raise £50m, which was aimed at giving promising students from low income families the chance to study at the prestigious uni.
In her impact statement to the court, his second victim accused him of using his influential position to win her trust and then intimidate her into staying silent for months about the sexual ordeal he put her through. The court heard he effectively “poured drink down her throat” at a dinner in January 2022 and later plucked her from the bed in which she was sleeping in the middle of the night.
When she came round the following morning she discovered she was in a
different room in the bed in which Harston had been sleeping, her underwear having been interfered with. Harston said to her: “I bet you were confused waking up in (my) bed.”
In her statement the woman told the court: “His senior position at the university enabled him to carry out the assault, knowing I could not speak up against him.” She continued: “How can he do this to women when he has two daughters, a good job, a family life and a religious faith? He looks like a genuine decent person but he used this image to commit a sexual assault against me. I find it truly disturbing that he did this to me whilst already under police investigation.”
The first assault happened at a party at a property on Teesside, in November 2020. The victim and her partner had been in attendance and she had been given so much drink by Harston that she felt sick and went upstairs to do so.
After she and her partner had gone to bed, Harston waited two hours until he was sure both were asleep before creeping into their room and carefully lifting the woman from the bed onto the floor. She came round during the sustained assault to find Harston with his hand clamped over her mouth while biting her nipple. He went on to commit further invasive sexual assaults upon her as she drifted in and out of intoxicated sleep.
In her statement to the court the woman said: “The trauma of that night has left me on medication for anxiety and had changed who I am. He used manipulation so that he could abuse me. He has turned my life upside down and ruined my life through his actions. I still have occasional flashbacks of him putting his hand over my mouth and telling me ‘sshhh.'”
Sophie Johnstone, mitigating, presented glowing references about Harston’s character and achievements at the university, saying he was a man of “hitherto good character.”
She said he had two daughters aged 15 and 12 and a son aged 10 months
from a more recent relationship with a mexican woman who would be unable to stay in the UK due to his incarceration. Ms Johnstone said: “His baby son will grow up with his father incarcerated for a significant proportion of his young years, this
will have a profound impact on them both.”
Judge Carroll said there had been “significant planning” in both attacks. In the first he had plotted by himself for two hours, turning out lights so as not to wake his intended victim of her partner and inventing a cover story about returning her phone if either of them awoke.
In the second attack he “poured alcohol down her throat at a rate that beggars belief” with the intention of reducing her to a state where he could sexually assault her. Harston, from Durham, denied sexual assault and two counts of assault by penetration on the first victim and sexual assault on the second. He was unanimously found guilty of all four charges by a jury at his trial last month.
After sentencing, Ian Lowther of Crown Prosecution Service North East, said: “Andrew Harston is a sexual predator who assaulted his victims as they were asleep. In both cases, the victims awoke to the terrifying experience of finding Harston in the process of carrying out sexual assaults upon them. Throughout the course of this trial, Andrew Harston has tried to minimise his responsibility for these attacks, falsely claiming that any sexual activity with his victims was entirely consensual.
“The Crown Prosecutions Service has worked closely with our police partners to build a robust case, which clearly shows that neither of Harston’s victims possessed the capacity to give informed consent to sexual activity at the time he carried out these attacks, and that there was no way that Harston could have reasonably believed that they had. Our thoughts remain with his victims, and we sincerely hope that they take some measure of comfort from seeing their attacker jailed today.”
Detective Sergeant Clare Riley, from Durham Constabulary said: “Whilst under investigation for sexual offences in Cleveland, Harston went on to commit further offences here in Durham. He showed extremely concerning predatory behaviour and above all showed no remorse for his actions by continuing to target further victims. I would like to praise the victim in this case who has found the
criminal process extremely hard, having to relive what Harston put her through. I hope she can now move on with her life knowing he has been brought to justice.”
