The Sarah Everard Case

Sarah Everard. A woman was walking home from her friend’s house when a police officer approached her and arrested her for breaching COVID-19 rules. Instead of taking her to a police station, he drove her to Dover where he raped and strangled her to death. The murder sparked widespread debate about the role of the police in British Society and the status of women’s safety in the UK.

Sydney-Anne McAllister, the founder of FemLegal- a platform dedicated to exposing the gendered nature of law and policy, remembers feeling sad but most of all frustrated when she heard about the case. In the weeks that followed, her organisation got behind campaigns such as ‘Say Her Name’ and ‘It Doesn’t Matter What She Was Doing’ to get justice for an innocent woman. She said, “She was just walking home, she was raped and murdered. This incident was extremely emotional for women everywhere. It could have been any of us”.

This now brings in the question of whether this will make people want to go to police officers when they have a problem or feel unsafe. Sydney said, “Police prosecutions in rape and sexual assault cases are already extremely low, so the prospect of disclosing this trauma to the police is already unappealing, coupled with the fact that the police are perpetrating the crimes, it is clear this country has a systemic misogyny problem”.

A vigil was held for Sarah Everard on March 31, 2021, in Clapham Common and several hundred people had attended but things quickly took a turn when the Metropolitan Police got involved. Four people were arrested for public order offences and for breaching the Coronavirus Act 2020. Sydney mentioned from a legal perspective there has been a recent High Court decision that found the police acted inappropriately that night. They held that the actions by the police represented an interference with the rights of protestors under Articles 10 and 11. She said, “It is apparent that on the night of the vigil, women’s rights were not in contemplation”.

Patsy Stevenson who was arrested at the vigil held at Clapham Common expressed that before the vigil she had a non-existent opinion of the police and she had never had issues with them beforehand. However, after the vigil, she now does not trust them at all after her experience and hearing similar stories she believes “there needs to be radical change and reform”. Allegedly, the officers clashed with the crowds and made several arrests at the vigil, one of them being Patsy. She believes that women have a just reason to struggle to trust the police, especially after this case has come up she said “there is a constant stream about police officers who have abused their power to perpetrate violence against women and they need to change”.

By Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona from Unsplash

“She was just walking home, she was raped and murdered. This incident was extremely emotional for women everywhere. It could have been any of us”.

Syndey-Anne McAllister

By Ehimatalor Akhere Unuabona from Unsplash

By Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona from Unsplash

This case sparked a nationwide debate on women's safety on the streets and this is where Women’s Street Watch came in. A group of female volunteers patrol the streets of Newcastle making sure women get home safe and believe everyone has the right to feel safe when walking around. They patrol every week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays and they offer advice, water, snacks, phone chargers, arrange taxis home and speak to/escalate to emergency services if needed. They have had such a positive response and they have had an immense amount of support, they said: “We believe that this is helping women immeasurably”

In November 2021, not long before they had started patrolling the streets, a volunteer asked a man to stop acting like a child while helping other women and in response, he shouted at them “I am grown, look at all my money” while shoving his bank statements in their face. So, even with their good intentions and the positive outcome they have had, they still experience negativity towards them.

John Josator, who is from Sweden, is a man that has ventured into an area where women are affected, the area being women’s safety on the streets. A female friend that he spoke to was drugged in a club and sexually abused one night and that was the day he went back to someone he worked with and said “I’ve got an idea”. The idea was to build an app, called Spher, that tackles rational and irrational problems, it will not only provide safety for women when walking home but give them the power to rate clubs and locations they have been in based on how safe they have felt.

A year and a half later, he did the research. He surveyed 1500 women and interviewed 120 out of the survey to get an idea of whether women needed this idea to come to life or not. He said, “it got me understanding that we need to build this, I care deeply for this problem and it’s a big necessity for this society”. The Sarah Everard case was all over the news in Sweden and it sparked conversation and debate which he found important as it was encouraging campaigning and changes to happen.

The top feature of this app will be the fact that women will have the power to rate and review many features of a club going from bouncers to the toilets. If a woman has had a bad experience they will be able to share it within the app so then other women would know to avoid the club for their safety. Women scrutinising clubs will then try to enforce change and apply pressure on clubs to see if they truly care for women’s safety.

John uses social media as a way for people “to come to our page and see what we stand for”, he is putting out posts that talk about feminism and issues that are relevant in keeping the conversation going even when it dies down. His next step is launching the app. It is set to launch on the internet in July 2022 but the first version of the app itself will be launched in September 2022 and will be developed over time with the feedback people give. In future, he plans to make an app for men.