Does L/Lord have the right to search thru drawers?

[Barry]

OK long story, I'll explain the full thing, as I want to make sure I get the right advice.

My youngest brother (Lewis) is currently in halls at a university. A girl was harrassing him in a big, long term way (around 4 months worth of harrasment), he kept telling her to get lost until finally he snapped with her, he said an alcohol fueled nasty thing to her thru a chat program on the computer (even tho she only lived a few doors down from him). This girl made a print screen of the thing he said to her and then proceeded to make allegations of intimidation against Lewis to the Uni staff. They then waited until Lewis had gone down town, got the spare keys and entered his property without him being there. This, from what I have read is perfectly legal because he has a cleaner as part of the tenancy agreement so they don't need to give 24 hrs notice. However they then proceeded to search his room, looking through all his drawers and belongings for weapons. They found some knives and some replica guns. (This sounds awful, but my brother is a keen rough camper, keeps going off for days at a time in the wilderness, and he needs these knives for this purpose, he does not carry them around at any other time, and they are always concealed in the drawer, the guns were plastic and did not work, he is doing a Media Studies degree and uses them when he makes films with a gun fight in them).

Following this there was an informal hearing, this went badly, and on Monday we went through the formal tribunal. This resulted in Lewis having his room taken off him and banned from staying on campus. This is very bad news as the uni is in the middle of nowhere and there is no other close-by accomodation. So it looks like he may have to leave the uni, and he's not going to get into anywhere else with this on his record. If we want to appeal we have to do it within 10 days, so I need this information asap!

I need to know if it's against the law to actually search through a tenants belongings without the tenant at least being there. There is nothing in the contract about it at all.

It must be said that the girl that's started all this seems to be mentally unstable...she felt that things weren't bad enough for Lewis so the next thing that happens is that we get a phonecall from the police because she'd been down the station with her 'evidence'...thankfully the policeman said "I wanted to tell her to go home and stop being a silly little girl but I'm not allowed to" which is one good thing I s'pose.

Thanks in advance,

Barry

[Dan]

Barry,

This sounds very serious, especially if the police are involved. I assume that the girl in question has made a complaint of harrasement against your brother which the police are obliged to follow up. Regardless of what the person said to you they will take it seriously especially if your son threatened violence. They will want to question him and there is a chance that they will arrest him first. Get the Yellow Pages out now and find a criminal solicitor to advise your brother!

[Jennifer_M]

Has Lewis got any proof that she's been harassing him ?

If they both use instant messaging programs there's a chance that it saved the logs so look for that.
Also has he got any friends who've witnessed her harassing him ?

He just needs to prove that she's been harassing him for 4 months and that it pushed him to say things he didn't mean just so she'd leave him alone.

[Barry]

Thankyou for your replies, altho I think perhaps I haven't explained myself very well:

Firstly he's not my son, he's my youngest brother.

Secondly, yes there are witnesses to this girl harrassing him, plus 20+ character witnesses (including a judge) that have stated that this is completely out of character for Lewis. There are no logs unfortunately.

BUT...this isn't the problem I was asking.

I need to know if it's illegal for the uni (acting as landlord) to go rummaging through my brother's drawers without my brother being there.

We aren't worried about the police involvement, Lewis has already been questioned by them, and nothing has come from it. The police have made it quite obvious that they are on our side and that it is plain that the girl whose caused all these problems is wasting their time.

Lewis is not being removed from the campus because he's said something to someone in a chat program, he's being removed because he broke college rules, as altho it's not illegal to have camping knives in your house it IS against college rules (Lewis didn't know this..he was told apparently but it had gone in one ear and out the other).

I've tried ringing all the C.A.B. offices in my local yellow pages and NONE of them are open on a Thursday or Friday it seems...in fact they're only open 3 days a week for a few hours a day. With regards to the criminal solicitor idea...lewis hasn't broken the law so we don't need one for him, but the uni has, so we have got one lined up if this appeal goes sour...but we obviously don't want to bring a solicitor into this until we have to as it's a waste of money that we would struggle to find. But we will bring him in if this appeal doesn't work.

Barry