Hi all

I've not posted anything here before, but I've found some of the advice on the other threads helpful, so I thought I'd reach out and try to pick peoples' brains, if that's ok...

So, I'm a PhD student and teaching assistant at a UK University. One of my students has found herself in a very tricky position; she's being accused of academic malpractise. Specifically, she is accused of getting a staff member to write parts of some of her assessments. Currently, she's going through an academic disciplinary.

What makes the situation more complex is that the student has disclosed to me that the staff member in question was abusing her. In particular, he had romantic feelings for her, and manipulated her into sending him bits of her work to "look at" as a means of getting close to her. She tells me that the staff member was emotionally abusive towards her, and used the veneer of providing academic support to try and draw her into a relationship with him. She is quite a vulnerable girl, and suffers from mental health issues and autism, and she was taken in by him and allowed him to amend parts of her work, as he apparently threatened harm against himself is she refused.

She's currently facing a University disciplinary panel about this matter; her School have been extremely dismissive of any argument she's made about her side of things (she has, I believe, only recently disclosed to the School what happened). She's concerned that she will be either expelled or made to retake the year (which she is financially unable to) as a result of this. Here's where I'm trying to figure out how best to support her - I've told her to disclose to all the relevant services, and get the support she needs. However, what I'm trying to get a sense of is how compelling her case would be for mitigating circumstances in a malpractise hearing.

Any thoughts?