Students from Derby University, who were on a degree course licensed by the College of Policing, have been suspended from Nottinghamshire Police, Derbyshire Constabulary and the university pending an investigation into an online group chat.

Five policing students who were also serving as Special Constables have been suspended from Derby University and their forces after  online chat in which they were making derogatory comments about female peers and joking about rape was shared on Facebook.

Screenshots from the online chat shows the men sending photos of other female students and then describing how they would have sex with them in degrading terms, and one of them joking about using child rape as a chat-up line.

A sixth student in the group who was studying Business was also suspended from the University.

A spokesperson at the University of Derby said: “We were incredibly disappointed to see the degrading and offensive language used in online forums about some of our female students. Such behaviour is unacceptable, will not be tolerated and is being addressed with the utmost urgency.

“The male students involved in making these comments have been suspended and we are working with an external specialist agency to carry out a full and formal investigation. We are following our Sexual Misconduct Policy and processes to ensure this is conducted fairly and thoroughly, and have offered support to the female students affected by this.”

Derby Constabulary and Nottinghamshire Police have suspended all the officers involved from duty and say they are investigating the matter.

Supt Suk Verma from Nottinghamshire Police said: "We are incredibly disappointed by these allegations which will be thoroughly and expeditiously investigated by the University and ourselves. Those concerned have been immediately suspended from their roles whilst an investigation takes place.”

Derbyshire said in a statement: “We have been made aware of a social media post relating to remarks made by a number of individuals. Two of the individuals alleged to have been involved in these remarks are current Derbyshire Constabulary Special Constables and enquiries are ongoing into their conduct - as well as possible criminal offences that may have taken place.

“The two special constables from Derbyshire have been immediately suspended from duty and staff from the force’s counter corruption unit are liaising with another force in relation to others mentioned in the posts.”

They went on to say: “The type of language seen in these comments is completely unacceptable and the organisation utterly condemns it.

“The force, and the public, expects the highest standards of behaviour from our officers, staff and volunteers, whether on or off-duty, on social media or otherwise. Those found not to have upheld our standards will be dealt with robustly through either criminal, or misconduct, procedures.”