Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: To whom it may concern,



I am applying to waive the twenty-one day deadline for late appeals for the following reasons: I received the letter of my academic standing on the 23rd of May, however I left for South Africa the following morning. In South Africa I was attending an intensive five-week course to gain a qualification as a hostile environment close protection operative. On this course I was working from 5am to 11pm most nights from Monday to Friday. On weekends I was working shifts in a Cape Town Ambulance attending to injuries that included the following; multiple gunshot wounds, full thickness burns covering over 50 of the body, broken bones due to domestic assault, late stage tuberculosis, etc.

The town I was located in, Hout Bay, had approximately one homicide and two violent home invasions per week, the town's population is 18000. During my last few days at Hout Bay there was rioting that lead to wide scale destruction which resulted in multiple homicides including several people who were burned alive. Things were so dangerous that I wore body armour and put in a logistics request for an MP5 submachine gun to ensure the safety of myself and my team.

Also my ability to access the internet was curtailed due to the limited speeds of the local internet infrastructure.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Additional information, including photographs are available upon your request.

Sincerely,




Alan Townshend-Carter