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Category: reclaim these streets

  • Personal safety alarms blare at women’s protest against Met Police

    Hundreds of protesters have filled the streets of Westminster with the deafening shriek of rape alarms as part of a demonstration against the Metropolitan Police.

    Feminist campaign group Sisters Uncut led the protests. Activists blocked traffic, released bright blue smoke flares, and chanted “our streets” as they marched from Scotland Yard to Charing Cross police station in central London.

    The march marked just over a year since serving officer Wayne Couzens abducted Sarah Everard. And protesters told the PA news agency that they were demanding “radical change” from a “rotten to the core” Met.

    Sisters Uncut protest
    Protesters from feminist action group Sisters Uncut march from Scotland Yard to Charing Cross police station in central London (James Manning/PA)

    Sisters Uncut said 1,000 rape alarms were activated at the police station, following emotional speeches from protesters.

    ‘Radical change’

    Patsy Stevenson, who was arrested at an impromptu vigil for Everard last year, called for home secretary Priti Patel to resign. Stevenson spoke to the crowd at Charing Cross police station as dozens of officers watched on. She told PA she’s calling for “radical change from the whole of the policing system”.

    When asked how the Met can restore public trust, she said:

    First thing is accountability, holding your hands up and admitting you’ve done something wrong.

    Secondly they need to understand there needs to be radical change from the whole of the policing system.

    At the moment we don’t even need police, and that’s not how it should be.

    Sisters Uncut protest
    People attend the protest organised by Sisters Uncut (James Manning/PA)

    When asked whether she thought new leadership following Met’s commissioner Cressida Dick’s resignation would amount to change, Stevenson said:

    Just because she’s out doesn’t mean anything is going to change.

    Wiping away tears as she spoke to the crowd, Stevenson said Patel should resign next. She said:

    Cressida Dick – thank god she resigned.

    Priti Patel is next by the way, let’s not forget who’s in charge.

    That vigil was a vigil for Sarah Everard, and so many women are murdered at the hands of men.

    How dare they tell us to stay indoors.

    Patsy Stevenson has called for Home Secretary Priti Patel to resign at a feminist protest led by Sisters Uncut in Westminster (Laura Parnaby/PA).
    Patsy Stevenson has called for Home Secretary Priti Patel to resign (Laura Parnaby/PA)
    Police Bill

    Protester Marvina Newton described the police as “a corrupt system that’s rotten to the core”.

    “The bigger system is broken,” she told PA. She added:

    We want to kill the Police, Crime and Sentencing Bill, we want to make sure that our children’s children should be able to have the democratic right to fight an oppressive power.

    Marvina Newton at the Sisters Uncut protest (Laura Parnaby/PA)
    Marvina Newton at the Sisters Uncut protest (Laura Parnaby/PA)

    If passed, the bill would give police greater powers to control protests. They would be able to impose start and finishing times, set limits on noise, and fine protesters who break rules up to £2.5k.

    Educate men, not women

    Revisiting advice given following Everard’s murder, activist Jill Mountford said women “should never, ever be told again that the answer is to carry a rape alarm”.

    Mountford is a community worker from Lewisham, south-east London. She told PA:

    First of all, they (the government) need to stop the cuts that are happening to local authorities…

    We should never, ever be told again that the answer is to carry a rape alarm or to stay indoors.

    The answer doesn’t lie with us, it lies with men in society, it lies with the Government and the cops and the police particularly.

    Jill Mountford, 61, at a Sisters Uncut protest on Saturday (Laura Parnaby/PA)
    Jill Mountford at the protest (Laura Parnaby/PA)

    Breach of protesters’ rights

    Saturday’s protest also comes one day after High Court judges found the Met had breached the rights of organisers of the vigil for Everard. The court said the Met failed “to perform its legal duty” to consider whether they had a “reasonable excuse” for holding the gathering amid coronavirus (Covid-19) restrictions.

    Sisters Uncut protest

    The Sisters Uncut protest began with a blockage on Victoria Embankment road outside Scotland Yard (James Manning/PA)

    Reclaim These Streets held the vigil for Everard near to where she went missing in Clapham, south London, in March 2021.

    The Met has been contacted for comment.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Horrifying research shows two cops a month commit violent or sexual offences against women and children

    THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS REFERENCES TO RAPE AND MURDER SOME PEOPLE MAY FIND DISTRESSING

    Eight police officers have been convicted of murdering their wives or girlfriends in the past 11 years. This figure comes from research on criminality among people working in criminal justice. And it destroys the idea that Sarah Everard’s alleged murder at the hands of a cop was, if true, isolated. Because in every month in 2019, on average at least two police officers committed violent or sexual offences against women or children. Yet the government wants cops in nightclubs to “protect women”. 

    But the figures are actually just the tip of the iceberg. Because in the year ending in March 2020, on average, more than one police officer broke the law every week.

    Unbelievable figures

    A writer calling himself Huyton Freeman has been researching crimes by people involved in criminal justice. His results are rigorously backed up by evidence. And the document is staggering.

    You can view Freeman’s research here. It details the criminality (or allegations of) or professional misconduct of police officers and police support staff, prison staff and court staff since January 2009 (also including once offence from 2008). It covers up to September 2020. And the details are horrifying.

    The document lists at least 500 incidents involving police officers. This includes:

    • Over 400 linked to police constables (PCs).
    • Around 70 linked to sergeants (Sgts).
    • Around 40 linked to police community support officers (PCSOs).
    • Around 40 linked to detective constables (DCs).
    • Around 30 linked to inspectors (Insp).
    • Three linked to detective chief inspectors (DCIs).

    The numbers above don’t include officers who had already left the force at the time of proceedings. Then, on top of this, the research documents prison officers, court staff, and others. Overall, Freeman has documented at least 800 offences. But it’s the details of what the listed people have done which is awful.

    Horrific crimes

    For example, between January 2009 and September 2020 there were:

    • 11 murders involving serving or ex-police officers. Eight were convicted. Three cases are ongoing. But nine of the 11 victims were police officers’ wives or girlfriends.
    • Over 90 charges of, or convictions for, rape among all professions. The majority were against women and children. Several of the offenders committed multiple crimes. Dozens of these were serving police officers.
    • Over 150 offences relating to children among all professions. Some of these were rape, sexual assault, or images of child abuse.

    Just in August last year, Freeman listed the following allegations/charges against police officers or police staff:

    • Three separate cases of gross misconduct.
    • Misconduct.
    • Cocaine use on duty.
    • A sexual assault charge.
    • “Sex acts while on duty”.
    • Theft.
    • Alleged sex offences, including “possessing extreme pornography”.
    • Inciting a 13-year-old girl to “engage in sexualised chat”.
    Heinous offences

    The list includes some horrific offenders. For example, as the Press and Journal reported:

    A former police officer was today jailed for 14 years for a catalogue of rape and sexual abuse offences against three women.

    David Cunningham committed the offences described by judge Lord Armstrong as “controlling and coercive” over a 14-year period.

    The 60-year-old regularly raped one woman between January 2005 and June 2008.

    He also forced her to stand outside in her underwear in bad weather on various occasions between January 2007 and June 2008.

    Cunningham raped another woman once or twice a week between December 2000 and April 2004.

    His third victim was sexually abused between June 2011 and October 2014 and on one occasion in September 2012 he choked her so violently she feared she was going to be strangled.

    It’s important to note Freeman’s work is just the cases they have managed to document. For example, Freeman missed that in June 2020 a former Devon and Cornwall police officer was found guilty by a misconduct panel of having sex with “vulnerable” women. Also, In January 2020 a South Wales cop was sacked for having sex while on duty.

    Overall, police criminality is not as rare as we may think. Official figures show that in the year ending 31 March 2020, 115 police officers faced criminal investigations. Of these, around 67 (59%) were found, or pleaded, guilty. That’s more than one officer a week being guilty of a criminal offence.

    Entrenched misconduct?

    Meanwhile, official stats from September 2020 show the level of police misconduct in England and Wales. In the year ending 31 March 2020 there were:

    • 2,242 cases of misconduct or gross misconduct.

    1,385 cases (62%) ended in misconduct proceedings. The results were:

    • “698 (31%) were assessed as misconduct and referred to a misconduct meeting”.
    • “687 (31%) required the bringing of a misconduct hearing or special case hearing (where the force considered there was sufficient evidence and public interest grounds for the case to proceed without delay) as they related to matters that could lead to the dismissal of the individual”.
    • “The remaining 857 (38% of all cases) did not require the bringing of misconduct proceedings but resulted in ‘management action’ which is ‘action or advice intended to improve the conduct of the officer concerned’”.

    Of these, the rates of action against police and police staff were low:

    Misconduct Figures One

    Misconduct Figures Two

    But Freeman’s document and official figures also pose a bigger question.

    Sarah Everard’s murder was not isolated

    The establishment painted Sarah Everard’s abduction and murder as “isolated” and “extremely rare”. This ignores the fact that someone kills a woman every three days in the UK. It also whitewashes the fact that current or ex-partners kill around 62% of the total number of women murdered.

    But moreover, Freeman’s research shows that police officers committing violent crimes against women and children is not isolated either. In 2019 alone, there were at least two cases a month involving serving or ex-police officers committing violent or sexual offences against women or children.

    As Byline Times reported, the problem appears acute in the Met Police. It wrote that:

    As many as 26 members of the Metropolitan Police were arrested between January 2018 and August 2020 for sexual offences, a previously unpublished Freedom of Information (FOI) request reveals

    Then:

    a total of 58 Met officers and staff members faced sexual misconduct proceedings over the course of the 19 months. Twenty-eight of these individuals were dismissed without notice, eight “would have been dismissed” but left of their own accord, and the remainder were given warnings of different severities.

    And Byline Times noted that:

    from January 2012 to June 2018… 562 officers were accused of sexual assault and only 43 faced subsequent proceedings. Twelve of these individuals faced informal “management action”.

    These figures alone raise serious questions over the government’s plans to put undercover police in bars and nightclubs to, as Sky News put it, “protect women from “predatory” offenders”.

    Broken beyond repair

    Ultimately, Freeman’s work and official stats are just the tip of the iceberg. The threshold for police to face disciplinary action has always been high. And all of this also doesn’t include, as Inquest noted, the “1778 deaths in police custody or otherwise following contact with the police in England & Wales since 1990”.

    Our system of policing is broken beyond repair. Something needs to change, and quickly. Because too many people are suffering horrifically at the hands of those supposed to protect them.

    Featured image via Postdlf – Wikimedia 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • The BBC ran to protect the Met over the Sarah Everard vigil

    The BBC faced backlash over its reporting on the violent police response to the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard. And on the same day, it also put out some appalling coverage of an attempted assault on a child. Now, its coverage of the Andrew Marr Show has just compounded the issue.

    Say her name

    Serving Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens, 48, is charged with kidnapping and killing Sarah Everard. The 33-year-old marketing executive went missing while walking home from a friend’s flat in south London on 3 March. Her body was found on 10 March.

    In response, the group Reclaim These Streets organised a vigil. It was due to take place on Saturday 13 March. After a court hearing and objections from the Met police, however, the group cancelled the official vigil. But crowds of people still turned up to remember Everard at Clapham Common. The vigil was livestreamed. And this meant tens of thousands of people witnessed the police violence against unarmed, peaceful women.

    The media has widely reported this. But a BBC headline put the emphasis on the women being at fault.

    Enter the BBC

    As SKWAWKBOX reported, the BBC put out this headline just after 9pm on 13 March:

    BBC confrontation headline

    People were angry:

    The initial headline clearly framed the women as the antagonists. And the BBC had already done something similar on 13 March, in another story about violence against women and girls.

    Framing is everything

    As it reported:

    Police are trying to find a man who attacked a teenage girl as she walked along a path in Derby.

    But the BBC headline on Twitter was:

    Here, the headline frames the girl as the aggressor. Writer Erica Buist broke it down:

    To make matters worse, the BBC managed to compound the issue even further.

    Jess Phillips on Marr

    Labour’s shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding Jess Phillips was on Marr. The host asked her at one point if she thought Met chief Cressida Dick should resign. Phillips said:

    I came here this morning to talk about violence against women and girls; about the names of all of those women, as well as Sarah Everard. And I’m ending up talking about Cressida Dick.

    But as people pointed out, the BBC chose to frame the issue around Dick and the Met:

    And again, the BBC played down police violence:

    Entrenched misogyny?

    It’s difficult to offer an explanation for the BBC‘s coverage of events this weekend. Repeatedly framing women as antagonists or aggressors cannot be a mistake. Playing down police and male violence can’t be, either. Many journalists, including at The Canary, are trained to write in the so-called “active voice”. As Grammarly says:

    Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb’s action.

    The “subject” in the BBC‘s coverage should have been the police at Clapham Common, and the male attacker in Derby. But they weren’t. So, it’s hard not to conclude that journalists at the BBC are intentionally doing this; firstly in the case of the vigil, and secondly over the teenage girl.

    Framing news coverage not only to protect the police but also to make women the aggressors is appalling. It only furthers the notion that the BBC is in no way a ‘public service’ broadcaster. It also points to entrenched misogyny in its output. And ultimately, it shows the BBC‘s MO of protecting the state, whatever the cost.

    Featured image via Subject Access – YouTube and pixy

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on The Canary.

  • Reclaim These Streets organisers seek legal challenge over ‘about-face by police’

    Organisers of a vigil in response to the disappearance of Sarah Everard are taking legal action after claiming police reversed a decision on allowing it to go ahead.

    Restricted

    They said there had been an “about-face” by the Metropolitan Police and they were told the Reclaim These Streets event planned for 13 March would not be permitted due to the coronavirus (Covid-19 ) lockdown.

    The group said in a statement on the evening of 11 March that they would seek an order in the High Court the following day, challenging the force’s interpretations of coronavirus restrictions when read against human rights law. Scotland Yard said it understands the “public’s strength of feeling” and that the Met remains in discussion with organisers “in light of the current Covid regulations”.

    The vigil, due to take place at Clapham Common bandstand in south London, was organised after 33-year-old Everard’s suspected kidnap and murder sparked anger over the safety of women on the UK’s streets.

    Sarah Everard
    Sarah Everard’s suspected kidnap and murder sparked anger over the safety of women on the UK’s streets (Family handout/PA)

    Organiser Anna Birley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that organisation for the vigil began on 10 March and the group had “proactively” contacted Lambeth Council and the Metropolitan Police. She said:

    Initially, we had feedback that they were looking at ways to navigate this, that they would be looking at how they could proportionately and appropriately provide community policing to the event.

    And we were in conversation about how we could do that safely so that people could express their anger and their grief without putting themselves or others at risk.

    We then had an about-face mid-afternoon yesterday. We were being put under increasing pressure that, individually, we would be at risk for doing so, but as would everybody who attended and all of the women across the country potentially who have been organising sister vigils in their own areas.

    Coronavirus

    Under the current coronavirus lockdown in England, people are largely required to stay at home and can only gather in larger groups for limited reasons, such as funerals or for education. Police can break up illegal gatherings and issue fines of £10,000 to someone holding a gathering of more than 30 people.

    Birley said that safety of the vigil had been a “priority from the get-go”, adding:

    It would be ironic to organise a vigil to think about women’s safety in public spaces without also thinking about the health and safety aspects.

    She said the location of Clapham Common was in part chosen because it is a “wide open space”, while organisers had emphasised wearing masks and the importance of social distancing.

    She added:

    We were trying to be very thoughtful. We had QR codes so that people could do track and trace, and just really trying to work out how we can do this in a really safe way.

    In the statement tweeted on 11 March, Reclaim These Streets said the group had “initially” received a positive response when it approached Lambeth Council and Scotland Yard while planning and promoting the event. The statement read:

    The Metropolitan Police said that they were ‘trying to navigate a way through’ and that they were ‘currently developing a local policing plan’ to allow the vigil to take place and to enable them to ‘develop an appropriate and proportionate local response’ to the event.

    Since this statement, the Metropolitan Police have reversed their position and stated that the vigil would be unlawful and that, as organisers, we could face tens of thousands of pounds in fines and criminal prosecution under the Serious Crimes Act.

    ‘Silenced’

    A Metropolitan Police statement said:

    We understand the public’s strength of feeling and are aware of the statement issued by Reclaim These Streets with regard to a planned vigil for Sarah Everard in Clapham Common this weekend.

    We remain in discussion with the organisers about this event in light of the current Covid regulations.

    The group said by “forcing us to cancel” the vigil, the police would be “silencing thousands of women like us who want to honour Sarah’s memory and stand up for our right to feel safe on our streets”.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on The Canary.