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Post by Admin on Mar 15, 2021 7:10:44 GMT
Boris Johnson has said he is "deeply concerned" by footage showing police officers detaining women at Saturday's vigil to remember Sarah Everard. The prime minister will chair a meeting of the crime and justice taskforce later to discuss ways to protect women. Officers handcuffed women and removed them from the gathering on Clapham Common in London on Saturday. Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has dismissed calls to resign and defended the force's actions. She said she was "more determined" to lead the Met, and hit out at "armchair" critics. Dame Cressida will join Mr Johnson at the taskforce meeting, which will discuss what further action is needed to make streets safer for women. Government sources said both Home Secretary Priti Patel and the prime minister had confidence in Dame Cressida. Ms Patel has instructed the police watchdog, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), to "conduct a lessons learned review in to the policing of the event", the prime minister has said. Mr Johnson said he was "deeply concerned" by the scenes on Clapham Common on Saturday night and that Dame Cressida had "committed to reviewing how this was handled". "The death of Sarah Everard must unite us in determination to drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system work to protect and defend them," he added.
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Post by Admin on Mar 16, 2021 4:33:59 GMT
London's Metropolitan Police are facing a firestorm of criticism over their aggressive disbanding of a weekend vigil honoring Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old woman who was abducted and killed allegedly by an officer serving in that same force. The high-profile case, which has ignited a reckoning in the U.K. over street harassment and violence against women, prompted female organizers to plan a "Reclaim These Streets" vigil in London for last Saturday night despite COVID-19 restrictions limiting outdoor gatherings. They ultimately canceled the Clapham Common event, with people instead coming by during the day to lay flowers and pay their respects. After an impromptu crowd gathered for speeches at the park's bandstand, police said they were forced to disperse them because the gathering violated COVID-19 restrictions. Footage of officers pulling women off the bandstand, handcuffing them and pinning some to the ground has sparked fury across the country, as well as calls from local and national leaders for investigations into the police's actions. Commissioner Cressida Dick has resisted calls to resign, saying recent events have made her "more determined" to lead the organization and help keep women safe. "This is fiendishly difficult policing, but also I'm sure for the people who wanted to express their feelings, that was a difficult situation for them," she said on Sunday. "And that's why it needs a cold light of day, sober review, and I think we're all agreed on that." Officer charged over Everard's kidnap and murder It's the latest chapter in a tragic saga that began earlier this month, when Everard vanished while walking home from a friend's house in the Clapham area of London. Investigators found her remains in a woodland area in a neighboring county last week, and Police Constable Wayne Couzens has been charged with kidnap and murder. The Metropolitan Police said in a release that 48-year-old Couzens, who joined the force in 2018, served on the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command "where his primary role was on uniformed patrol duties of diplomatic premises, mainly a range of Embassies." Police have said he was not on duty at the time of Everard's disappearance.
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Post by Admin on Mar 17, 2021 3:59:22 GMT
A London Metropolitan police officer who took part in the search for Sarah Everard has been removed from duties for sharing "an inappropriate graphic," the force has said.
"On Friday, 12 March, the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards was made of aware of an inappropriate graphic that was allegedly shared via social media by a probationary MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) police constable with some colleagues," said a statement from the Met Police on Monday.
Everard, 33, disappeared on a walk home on March 3, and another London Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with her kidnap and murder.
The police statement said that the sharing of the graphic was reported by officers who were "concerned by its content."
"The officer has been removed from these duties and placed in a non-public facing role while enquiries continue," the statement added.
The force said that the graphic shared on social media "does not contain photographic images, no images of Sarah, nor any other material obtained from or related to the investigation into Sarah's murder."
It added that Everard's family has been informed of the incident.
Everard disappeared while walking in Clapham, south London, prompting an extensive police search in the area. Human remains were later found in woodland in Kent, south of London.
The police officer charged with her kidnap and murder, Wayne Couzens, 48, is provisionally set to go to trial on October 25, a judge at the Old Bailey -- the Central Criminal Court -- ruled Tuesday.
Everard's death has reignited a national debate in Britain on women's safety and sexual assault.
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Post by Admin on Mar 19, 2021 3:00:52 GMT
Police in England and Wales are set to record misogyny as a hate crime on an experimental basis from this autumn, a government minister has said, as the UK faces a reckoning on violence against women. Susan Williams, a Conservative in the House of Lords and a junior minister in the Home Office, said in Parliament Wednesday that on an experimental basis, the government "will ask police forces to identify and record any crimes of violence against the person, including stalking and harassment, as well as sexual offenses where the victim perceives it to have been motivated by a hostility based on their sex." The move will not require a change in the law as it is already possible to categorize these offenses as hate crimes. Williams said the reason the move is experimental is because the UK's Law Commission had said the designation wouldn't guarantee greater effectiveness in bringing justice to offenders. Numerous prominent campaign groups in the UK had been pushing for misogyny to be designated a hate crime for some time. However, the murder of Sarah Everard has forced a national conversation about the violence, harassment and intimidation that women face. The move to record misogyny as a hate crime was welcomed by campaigners. Citizens UK, an organization that brings communities in the UK together to campaign for social change across society, tweeted: "Amazing news! ... Recording is such a vital step - goes beyond policing. With the data, society & the state can now build on this and take on endemic #misogyny in our culture." But others worried that the move wouldn't necessarily lead to more crimes against women being reported. "We urgently need better data on the prevalence and scale of the sexual harassment women face on a daily basis. A new way of recording crimes on its own will not achieve that unless it is accompanied by funding for training of police and transport workers," says Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. "One of the drivers behind the data gap on sexual harassment is that women do not report -- and they do not report because they do not know who to report to or what they can report." UN Women UK last week published a report which said that over 95% of all women did not report their experiences of sexual harassment, with 98% of women aged 18-34 not reporting incidences of sexual harassment.
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Post by Admin on Mar 21, 2021 22:32:04 GMT
Two police officers have been taken to hospital with injuries after protesters clashed with police in Bristol.
Thousands of people turned up at a rally against the Police and Crime Bill, which includes plans to give officers more powers to control demonstrations.
Officers had told people to stay away. Avon and Somerset police condemned what they called “disgraceful scenes” and called on neighouring forces for support.
The Home Secretary has called the events unacceptable.
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