London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2025

'A missed opportunity': campaigners react to Everard vigil policing report

'A missed opportunity': campaigners react to Everard vigil policing report

Analysis: campaigners say women’s trust in police undermined by watchdog’s conclusions
A watchdog report that deemed the policing of a vigil for Sarah Everard “appropriate” has undermined women’s trust in the police, according to campaigners, attendees and the vigil’s original organisers.

Organisers from Reclaim These Streets, which cancelled a planned short, socially distanced vigil after police said they could be fined tens of thousands of pounds, said the report had failed to investigate how the cancellation of the event had led to more anger and the greater likelihood of public disorder.

The home secretary, Priti Patel, ordered the report after widespread anger at images of officers pinning women to the floor at the vigil in Clapham Common, south London, on Saturday 13 March.

The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) published on Tuesday concluded that officers had acted “appropriately”, stating they “did their best to peacefully disperse the crowd; police officers remained calm and professional when subjected to abuse; and police officers did not act inappropriately or in a heavy-handed manner”.

But Jessica Leigh, one of the original vigil’s organisers said policing of the event had further eroded women’s confidence in the police.

“There is no attempt in this report to address the issue that women now have less trust in the police than they did before the vigil,” she said. “It is a missed opportunity to recognise the damage done by the police’s decision to push for the event to be cancelled, and exacerbated by their actions while policing the event.”

She accused the report of framing organisers as “silly little girls who didn’t know how to organise an event”, despite the fact that two were elected councillors with experience of event organisation.

Estelle du Boulay, the director of Rights of Women, said she was “appalled by the scenes of police brutality” at the Clapham vigil.

She pointed to the report’s finding that there “was a degree of confusion as to the correct legal position”, saying this revealed an apparent lack of understanding of human rights obligations.

“How the review can therefore conclude that the police acted “appropriately” raises serious questions around the credibility of the review,” she said. “It’s conclusion will do nothing to improve women’s confidence in policing and will further deepen the widespread distrust in accountability mechanisms in relation to the police.

Reclaim These Streets said local police had initially been willing to work together when they proposed a peaceful and short vigil, but then said they had to ban the event because of coronavirus restrictions. The group took the police to the high court for an emergency hearing, but after their challenge failed they cancelled the event citing the police’s “lack of constructive engagement”.

Many chose to attend the event despite police warnings. As night fell police began forcibly removing protesters and there was further anger as some officers were seen trampling on flowers that had been left on Clapham Common bandstand.

One attendee said the report did not reflect her experience. “The police were really very aggressively asking people to leave and telling them they would be arrested if they didn’t. It really wasn’t a polite chat,” said Becky Gardiner, a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Mandu Reid, the leader of the Women’s Equality party said: “This exoneration of the police only adds fuel to claims that the force has a huge problem with institutional misogyny and sexism and that officers can and will act with impunity.”

Jess Southgate, the chief executive of Agenda, the alliance for women and girls at risk called for police to be trained to recognise and respond to victims of trauma, rather than “retraumatising them through arrests”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
×