Frustration is growing on the campus of the Universite de Moncton after an eighth malicious email targeting a female student landed in the inbox of students and staff.
“It's complete chaos on campus,” said student union president Roxann Guerrette. “No one trusts the administration. We don't believe they're doing their job.”
The emails are all threatening and at least two contain sexually explicit images. The latest email includes a link to an online porn site. One student has reached out to the site, begging them to remove the video as it was uploaded without the woman’s consent.
Wednesday night’s email appeared to come from an address at the University of Ottawa, but the university says that’s not the case.
"We immediately investigated and can confirm that the email address used doesn't exist on University of Ottawa email systems,” said Isabel Myyou Pulkinghorne, a spokesperson for the university. “It's possible that the sender created the email address to make it look like a UOttawa.ca email account."
New Brunswick Minister of Post-Secondary Education Donald Arsenault is asking Universite de Moncton administration to investigate how these attacks continue to happen.
Arsenault says he’ll meet with the university's president next week.
Lorraine Whalley of the Fredericton Sexual Assault Crisis Centre says the woman being targeted is victimized with every new email.
“They feel fear, they feel humiliated, shame, they can feel like they have no one to talk to,” said Whalley. “There's so many impacts on their psychological health, their physical health."
Roxann Guerrette says the university is ill equipped to handle sexual harassment of any kind. She says there's one expert available to students, but only two days a week.
“We're at the point where the strategies are so not executed in the proper way that we are wondering if the victim is actually having the help that she needs,” said Guerrette.
RCMP say they have a suspect.
“We have an idea at this time but I cannot elaborate exactly where he is, if he's outside the country or not,” said Sgt. Andre Pepin of Codiac RCMP. “It's all part of the investigation.”
A request for the provinces Attorney General to weigh in has gone unanswered. The university is promising to hold a news conference on Friday.
Students are planning a protest on campus Thursday evening, saying they’re not happy with how the university is handling the ongoing incident.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.
