Students forced to leave protest

Students staged a four day sit-in at an LMU campus in east London

Students have been forced to abandon a sit-in protest at London's largest university over plans that could lead to the loss of 550 jobs.

Protesters said they were served with a court injunction obtained by London Metropolitan University (LMU) ordering them to leave a university campus.

LMU is being forced to repay some £50m after auditors found drop-out rates were higher than stated.

The university was unavailable for comment.

'Further protests'

The students had occupied the university's Commercial Road campus in Whitechapel, east London, since Monday.

Student Amy Jameson said up to 100 had taken part in the four-day demonstration.

She said: "Instead of choosing to engage with us, the university decided to move us by any means necessary.

"We feel we have been deceived by the university. This isn't the end, we definitely plan to have further protests."

She said the students had met university management and visited Parliament to speak to their local MPs George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn about the protest.

The university has more than 34,000 students on its register and 4,612 members of staff.

Last week, lecturers took strike action over the funding issue.

Union leaders said the trigger to strike action was a "poorly thought through" redundancy scheme announced by managers in the middle of talks.