One year on from Sarah's murder and none of us feels any safer

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Today, astonishingly, is the anniversary of the abduction, rape and murder by a serving police officer of .It seems like only yesterday we were grieving for Sarah, holding vigils in her memory and trembling with fear and fury at the revelation that she had been duped into getting into a car with Wayne Couzens, thinking she was being accused of the ‘crime’ of breaching rules by walking home alone near London’s Clapham Common.The questions flowed thick and fast.

How did the not know Couzens was a danger to women? Why had he been dubbed ‘the rapist’ by his equally misogynist colleagues who seemed to find his reputation for exposing himself highly amusing?All of us knew that what happened to Sarah — and to , who was murdered in South-East London six months after Sarah — could so easily have happened to us.

We’d all taken detours to avoid dangerous spaces, we’d all carried keys as a potential weapon, we’d all worn flat – https://www.deer-digest.com/?s=worn%20flat shoes in case we needed to run. Jenni Murray said it seems like only yesterday we were grieving for Sarah (pictured), and trembling with fear that she had been duped into getting into a car with Wayne CouzensWe also knew that being out alone at night was our right, and that harassment or abuse was not our fault.

It should not be up to us to keep ourselves safe by living limited, fearful lives.But in the months after Sarah’s killing, the only advice the police had to offer to a woman who felt fear of lurking danger, whether from a police officer or any man, was to flag down a bus!Where was the acknowledgement that it was not our responsibility to be safe?

Where were the promises that only trustworthy police officers would be employed?Evidence of more appalling police behaviour was soon exposed, and the revelations keep coming.Inappropriate photos were taken of the bodies of the sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry in a Wembley park by two Met police officers in June 2020.
Last month, it emerged disgusting messages joking about rape and domestic violence were exchanged by officers at Charing Cross police station. RELATED ARTICLES

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In the weeks after Sarah’s death, Boris Johnson promised the Government would do everything it could to ensure the streets were safe, providing better lighting and greater use of CCTV in parks and other areas.But CCTV was no help to Sarah.

Pieced-together footage of Sarah’s last journey and encounter with Couzens is available online for all to see, and there was no lack of street lighting as she walked on the pavement.Why has there not been a police force-wide re-vetting process to root out the wrong ‘uns?
Why has every officer’s mobile phone and computer not been checked, as has happened to so many innocent women complaining of rape or porn – http://dulichhobabe.com/vn/tour-du-lich-mien-bac/295-tour-ha-noi–thac-ban-gioc–ho-ba-be-3-ngay-2-dem.aspx sexual assault? Tweets and texts might well reveal who is fit to be a police officer and who is not.One year on, do any of us feel any safer on the streets or phim sex – http://dulichhobabe.com/vn/tour-du-lich-mien-bac/295-tour-ha-noi–thac-ban-gioc–ho-ba-be-3-ngay-2-dem.aspx any more trusting of the police meant to protect us?No, we don’t! Jenni (pictured) claims we will all feel safer if we know complaints of abuse will be believed and speedily investigatedIt’s incredible that it has taken a year for the Government to acknowledge that women enjoying their independence is not the problem.

That the danger lies with predatory, dangerous men.A campaign, dubbed Enough, was launched this week by the Home Secretary Priti Patel, who admitted that ‘for too long, the responsibility of keeping safe has been placed on the shoulders of women and girls’.It will consist of adverts on TV, radio, social media and billboards, encouraging men to call out their friends who send naked pictures, harass women in the street, submit their partners to coercive control or engage in unwanted touching.We know not all men and boys are bad, and a campaign of this nature may well persuade some lads to break away from ‘banter culture’ and tell a less enlightened mate he’s wrong to post naked pictures of his girlfriend as ‘revenge porn’.

But it’s not nearly ‘Enough’.There’s only one way to make women feel safer on the streets — and that’s to target the bad guys and bang them up.Every woman I know has either suffered some form of sexual violence herself, or knows a friend or colleague who has.
It happened to me many years ago when I was raped while still a student.It’s estimated there are 128,000 victims of rape and attempted rape each year. In the 12 months to September 2021, 63,136 rape offences were recorded by the police.

Of those, only 1.3 per cent resulted in a suspect being charged, leading to prosecution.Dame Vera Baird, Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, has long maintained t