A student pro-life group required police to protect them from a hostile crowd of up to 250 people that surrounded a building where they were due to meet.

The University of Manchester’s Pro-Life Society, met for a talk on the evening of 1 March. As students tried to access the building, eggs were thrown at windows, while attendees were subject to “a torrent of verbal abuse and threats”.

As students left the event, they had to proceed through a tunnel of protesters held back by police as the air reverberated with chanting: “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

The pro-life students were spat at and threatened with physical abuse, including one female first-year student being told to “get raped”. Some members of the crowd then pursued the students while shouting and swearing at them.

A heavily pregnant 22-year-old woman had to be escorted home in a police van due to concerns for her safety.

“I really thought our lives were in danger,” says Maisie, the expectant mother and an alumna of the university.

A petition has been signed by 15,000 students looking for the pro-life organisation to be shut down completely.