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You can tell this is ragebait because they didn't bother to do any actual reporting work. The entire story is just the student's own recounting of what happened.

> University of Exeter has been approached for comment

I guess this breaking news was just too urgent to even allow the use of past tense.

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been is a past participle!

Besides, present perfect seems appropriate. It's commonly used to discuss events in the past relating to 'now'.

Past perfect wouldn't make sense, as past of what past? And past simple, focusing on a finished, closed event, when this even doesn't seem 'over' - at least from the perspective of some.

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