On a freezing night in January 2022, a group of Cambridge University freshers trooped in single-file down by the river Cam in the winter winds, dressed only in shorts and trainers.
One was carrying a box of matches. Then each of the men, most of whom were aged 18 to 20, doused themselves in lighter fuel.
As the ritual began, they started to stuff clumps of lavatory paper down their shorts. Then the boys lit the paper - and ran like crazy into the wind to try to put it out.
It was all fun and games - until it wasnt. One of the boys caught fire. The members, who had all been drinking, watched in horror as the blaze consumed his thighs. It took nearly a minute before they finally extinguished the flames. He was later taken to hospital.
The Mail has spoken to the young man in question, who has shared his story but asked not to be quoted. Luckily, he escaped serious injury.
First year university students are taking part in hazing in which would-be members of sports clubs and other groups must perform humiliating or dangerous tasks before they are eligible join them
These first-year students were taking part in a ritual hazing, in which would-be members of sports clubs and other groups must perform humiliating or dangerous tasks before they are eligible join them.
The undergraduates were part of a drinking society called Crabs, Clare Rugby and Boating Society, which was established in 1930 as one of the first drinking societies at Cambridge. Clare did not reply to the Mails request for comment.
But this was not a one-off incident. Across the UK, first-year students who arrived at universities in recent weeks are taking part in multiple appalling and degrading games.
This summer, Harper Adams University in Shropshire was accused of allowing endemic physical abuse as former students of the agricultural institution claimed they had been assaulted at its rugby club initiations in recent years.
At the university, which counts Princess Anne as its Chancellor, students reported being pressured into drinking bodily fluids and having cigarettes stubbed out on them, as part of alcohol-fuelled parties known as socials.
Drinking societies such as Oxfords notorious Bullingdon Club, which famously had David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson as tailcoated members in the 1980s, have existed for decades and even longer in our top universities.
But a new, ugly and pernicious culture has since taken hold across the academic landscape - and is becoming increasingly out of control.
The hazing phenomenon has been imported from America, where first-year students attempting to join male frat houses and female sororities are forced to take part in drunken initiation rituals.
Since 2000, over 100 students have died from hazing at colleges and universities across America – with others left severely disabled or even blinded by alcohol poisoning.
Across the UK, first-year students who arrived at universities in recent weeks are taking part in multiple appalling and degrading games
Only last month, two fraternity members at Penn State, Pennsylvania, were jailed for hazing a 19-year-old to his death. After consuming eighteen alcoholic drinks in less than two hours, engineering student Timothy Piazza fell 15ft down a staircase and later died in hospital.
In the UK, former first-year students have told me of being forced to consume potentially lethal amounts of alcohol while performing degrading acts including wearing nappies, eating live goldfish or tins of dog food and being sexually assaulted with wine bottles.
What drives this awful behaviour? For many young men who push each other to do ever more outrageous acts: the rewards are camaraderie and group membership. And every year, successive groups create ever more disgusting challenges than the ones they were forced to endure themselves.
Increasingly this is leaving many students terrified at the prospect of joining any college sports at all. One first-year student at St Andrews University told me he was so concerned about the rituals he might face, he had avoided joining any team.
I didnt even go to the try-outs, he said. All summer, I had heard about the initiations and just couldnt face it.
After leaving Cambridge University last year, I realised that the reputation these institutions have in the outside world for mollycoddling their students is often utterly at odds with reality.
Universities are increasingly known for their safe spaces, mental health puppy visits, sober knitting groups, de-platforming and cold-water swim clubs (in aid of mental health), while just last month it was reported that one in eight Oxford students are undergoing counselling.
But these anarchic drinking games and hazing rituals can be seen in part as a reaction to this way of living. Perhaps it is this very obsession with safe spaces that pushes some young people, especially men, to create distinctly unsafe spaces for themselves.
A new, ugly and pernicious culture has since taken hold across the academic landscape - and is becoming increasingly out of control
One former student told me with horror of what he called the recent Jaffagate episode, in which members of the football team ran around one of my universitys sports pitches with Jaffa cakes wedged between their buttocks. My whole building watched from their windows as the loser of the race had to eat the biscuits of those who had participated - it was dire and humiliating to watch.
At Cambridge, members of a drinking club last year woke initiates in the middle of the night and forced them to eat a packet of dry crackers – they had to eat the crackers, and were then offered a pint of water – which turned out to be vodka, which they then also had to finish.
The former student running the initiation told the Mail: Drinking socs are very frowned upon at University. However it is safe to say they are still very much present and thriving on campuses.
Speaking about the initiation, he added: When I was president of my drinking society, I made sure that initiates could choose not to do the challenges that I had set up. But occasionally, I had to kick people out for poor behaviour. I wouldnt say I regret being part of it - but would want these activities to be more inclusive and safe.
In 2021, an investigation was launched at a Russell Group University rugby club after a first-year student was urinated on during team trials.
Other incidents have a troubling sexual element: students and former students at many universities including Kings College London told the Mail how they had covered the genitals of young initiates in curry powder and toothpaste and also burned them with cigarettes.
In 2022, the Master at Downing College, Cambridge, slammed his institutions Gentlemen Patricians, a drinking society, as predatory after the group was said to have been targeting women they deem attractive, inducing them to drink in excess, and treating them in a misogynist way.
But its not just the men. Female clubs, societies and sports teams across universities also initiate newcomers with grotesque ingenuity.
In 2019, Loughborough Womens Hockey freshers were reportedly made to eat dead maggots and dog food while being egged by the older students during an initiation. A Loughborough spokesman said: We continue to work with our sports clubs to ensure inappropriate initiations are a thing of the past.
What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages? asks the bullied character Piggy in William Goldings 1954 novel Lord of the Flies, in which a group of schoolboys are stranded on an uninhabited island and descend into murderous violence. These stories provide a chilling - and sometimes tragic - answer.
In December 2016, Ed Farmer, a 20-year-old Newcastle University first-year student went into cardiac arrest after drinking a lethal quantity of alcohol during an initiation-style pub crawl with the Agriculture Society. In one bar, his group had ordered a round of 100 triple vodkas.
The inquest into Mr Farmers death heard that participants drank vodka from a pigs head and bobbed for apples in a bucket containing urine and alcohol.
Sam Potter, 19, was participating in a University of Gloucestershire rugby club initiation on an evening in May, 2019, when he died from alcohol toxicity after a four-hour drinking game. His blood was found to contain 362mg of ethanol per 100ml of blood - four and a half times the drink-drive limit.
Most universities have strict rules banning these events. This month, Team Durham, which oversees sport at Durham University, banned socials with alcohol from happening in private places after what it called challenges to the safety and wellbeing of new members.
This is a common reaction by university authorities. Yet some students have told the Mail this is only likely to drive the parties further underground - making them even more dangerous.
A spokesman for Harper Adams University, where the rugby club was accused of allowing endemic physical abuse, said it was shocked and saddened by the revelations. We know that we cannot change history, but we are determined to prevent events like this one – which took place a number of years ago - from being repeated... for the avoidance of doubt, initiation ceremonies are banned.
One former student who suffered injuries as an initiate to a drinking society but remained a member regardless, told the Mail the problem is nuanced: It is up to those in charge of these events to make sure there is never a tangible risk of serious harm, and that initiates are aware there is always a choice.
Universities are now increasingly polarised environments. And many students who left home for the first time this autumn face debauched drug and alcohol-fuelled initiations on the one hand, and sober-curious craftivist knitting clubs on the other. Which one they find more appealing could cost them not just their health and their dignity - but even their life.