Front Burner - Sarah Everard and a reckoning about violence against women

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

Sarah Everard’s killing in South London earlier this month has sparked protests and a renewed conversation about violence against women in the U.K. and beyond. Today, Guardian reporter Alexandra Topping on why her story is resonating.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem, brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, Jamie here. So we recorded the episode that you're about to hear about the tragic murder of Sarah Everard out of the UK pretty early yesterday morning. At the time, we were just learning about what had happened in Atlanta and were able to talk very briefly about it in the conversation. But as the day went on, the details out of Atlanta became more clear

and were just, well, they were really awful. Eight people killed, seven of them women, six of them of Asian descent. And all of this is happening at a time when Asian Americans and Asian Canadians are experiencing massive spikes in violence and hate directed towards them since the start of the pandemic. And I just want to say that we tried really hard to put together an episode about all of this so that you could hear it right now. But by the day's end, we just didn't have it. We're working towards having something for you on Friday. So I hope that you'll stay tuned. In the meantime, today's discussion, it also deals with some bigger themes about how we address violence against women. So I hope that it's helpful.

At around 9pm on March 3rd, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was walking home from a friend's house in South London. She was wearing a bright green jacket, orange running shoes. She chose a public route home, called her boyfriend, until that call cut out abruptly. She never made it. After days of searching, police announced they had found Sarah's remains and that a London Metropolitan Police officer was charged with her murder and kidnapping.

The news of her death spurred a wave of protests around London and across the country. Today, I'll talk to senior Guardian reporter Lexi Topping about all of this, and how Sarah Everard's story has spurred a national conversation about violence against women in the UK and beyond. Hi, Lexi. Thanks so much for making the time to speak with me today. No problem. Thank you for having me on. So let's start with what happened on Saturday night. A group called Reclaim the Streets had wanted to hold a vigil near where Sarah disappeared, but they had to cancel it due to coronavirus restrictions.

And despite that, I know that hundreds of people showed up in Clapham Common. And what was the scene like? Well, it was quite extraordinary really it started off organised by the group Reclaim These Streets who were not a collective before the death of Sarah Everard they only formed after she disappeared but such was the outpouring of grief after the disappearance of Sarah that it spawned several other vigils in other towns and cities as well.

There was up to two dozen at one point throughout the UK. Like you said, the police turned around and said that this couldn't happen because of coronavirus restrictions. Now, the group challenged that, and in fact there was an emergency legal hearing on Friday afternoon, which they were not successful in. So they cancelled the vigil. But almost as soon as they had cancelled the vigil, women online were saying, well, I am going to go and pay my respects. And indeed, on Saturday throughout the day, women and men, but mainly women, were going to Clapham Common,

laying down floral tributes, leaving cards and tributes to Sarah and talking, you know, examples of their own experiences. The crowd gathered and continued to grow until the late afternoon started to turn into early evening. At first, there wasn't much of a police presence, but the police, as the crowd grew, the police presence grew as well. And talk to me about what happened then. At first, the police seemed to be standing off. The police seemed to be standing off. Women were chanting and holding lights up on their phones. But the crowd kept on growing.

And as night fell, police started to try and intervene and tell women that they now had to go home. Move back! Move back! Move back! Move back! Get your hands off me! women that they now had to go home. By about nine o'clock, we were seeing quite distressing pictures from Clapham Common of women being arrested, women being taken away, women being held forcibly on the ground. And that has provoked a very strong reaction here in the UK. There is this viral photo that I saw of a woman, she's being arrested, she's wearing this shirt that says abuse of power comes as no surprise. And I think it's probably worth noting that there have been calls for the chief of Metropolitan Police to resign over how this was handled, right? And a review is underway.

Indeed, the police have faced quite fierce criticism about the policing of this event from all quarters, really, from the women who were there, from the mayor of London. London's Mayor Sadiq Khan, called what happened completely unacceptable and wants a full independent investigation. Also from our Home Secretary, Priti Patel. But behind the scenes, the government were backing the police and saying that they were right to not let this protest go ahead. So there has been some confusion there about what the government actually did want to happen. And as you said, you know, people have been calling for Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, to resign. She has not done so. Are you considering your position?

No, I'm not. What happened to Sarah appalls me. What has happened makes me more determined, not less, to lead my organization. As you mentioned, there's been this massive response to Sarah's death protests, not just in Clapham Common, but across the country. And I know that there has been a huge outpouring of stories, not just from the streets, but also online, women talking about their own experiences. And can you tell me about what you've been hearing? Are there any particular stories that have stuck out to you? I think what's really hit women about this case is the fact that Sarah really took as many precautions as it's possible to take to keep herself safe. And there's a real sense of this, this could have been any one of us. And women have been sharing

stories about the precautions that they take when they leave the house, whether it be in the evening or, you know, if they're going for a run during the day. And they've been talking about the near misses that they've had as well. have experienced when they've been in public places, being grabbed, being followed down the street, being abused in public for no reason. A good friend of mine tweeted that she recalled when her vagina was grabbed when she was walking up the stairs in a bus. I recalled myself being shown graphic, violent pornography on a bus by a man who was intimidating me so much, I just got off the bus and left. And there was a sense that women just didn't want to have to deal with this kind of aggression every day. We didn't want to negotiate our own safety on a daily basis. And there's just been a real outpouring of frustration and grief and anger.

Right. I mean, you talk about those precautions. I think she was wearing the running shoes, the bright green jacket. She took a well-lit route home, called her boyfriend. I think we've all been there, right? When you're walking home, maybe alone at night, you've got maybe your phone in one hand, your keys in the other. I know that there were also reports in the days after Sarah's disappearance that police were knocking on doors, telling women to stay home. And what kind of reaction did that get? Yes, I think this was one of the things that really provoked quite widespread fury amongst

women, because this was not an official stance that the police were taking in the days after Sarah's disappearance. But police officers who were going door to door were saying it may not be safe to be out right now. You should think about staying at home as though there were, you know, it was women's responsibility once again to look after their own safety. And for many women in the UK, that resonated particularly because it reminded women of a period in the late 1970s when Peter Sutcliffe, who you may know as the Yorkshire Ripper, was on a killing spree of women in Yorkshire and women were told quite blatantly by the police to stay home. So there was a real sense of anger that we hadn't moved on from that point where it was still women's responsibility to make sure that they

were safe rather than the focus being, you know, what we do to prevent male violence against women. for me. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income?

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The arrest has been made. Two arrests have been made. These are significant developments. A really shocking development in this story. A London Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with kidnapping and murdering Sarah. And what do we know about this man, Wayne Cousins? And murdering Sarah. And what do we know about this man, Wayne Cousins? Well, we know that Wayne Cousins, like you said, is a serving police officer. He's 48. He lives in Deal in Kent, so not in the capital.

Because of quite strict reporting restrictions in the UK, we're not allowed to discuss any other details about him really in case it could prejudice a future trial. We do know that his trial is expected to take place in the autumn. Okay and have police released any information or are you even allowed to report on you know how he became a suspect or how he was caught or, you know, what happened the night that Sarah went missing? No, indeed, anything of that nature can't be reported in the press right now in case it prejudices a future trial. So what can be reported about him is very, very much restricted to his name, age and where he lives, I'm afraid. OK, you know, coming back to the head of the Metropolitan Police, Christina Deck, whom you mentioned before,

I know that she was criticised for saying that what happened was incredibly rare. Londoners will want to know that it is thankfully incredibly rare for a woman to be abducted from our streets. And can you tell me why? I think when Cressida Dick said that the abduction and murder of a woman was rare in this country, it really distressed and made some people really quite angry, because they thought that that minimized the kind of level of violence that women and girls faced in the UK all of the time. I mean, just to throw some stats at you that come from an organization called End Violence Against Women, we know that one in three women will experience domestic violence. Two women are killed by a current or former partner every week.

And they estimate that half a million women are raped or sexually assaulted every year. So when women heard that this is rare, that wasn't their experience. Yes, perhaps the most extreme cases of violence are quite rare. But actually, there is violence happening to women on both a small and a large scale every day. And can you tell me more about what people are talking about? What do they want? I think what's interesting at the moment is that violence against women and girls is being discussed in the public domain in a way that I've never seen before. And I've covered this area for at least a decade.

So it's interesting that people are looking for more than just a knee-jerk response. The government has turned around and said, oh, well, we'll give more funding for street lighting and CCTV. The prime minister really, really wanted to show that we are listening and that we want to act to help women feel safe in our streets, which is why this investment will go on very practical measures. Perhaps we could have plainclothes police officers in bars to help keep women safe. And people working in this field are screaming, no, that is not the answer. You know, the answer is a route to overhaul of how we deal with violence against women in this

country. And that means better funding, it means public health campaigns, it means better education for children from a younger age. And it means having women's voices at the top of government. I think campaigners are also saying that we have to recognise that just as Sarah Everard's killing is not a one-off, violence against women and girls isn't in a silo. It's also connected to gender inequality. And unless we try and go some way to fix gender inequality in this country, we aren't going to fix a problem of violence against women.

We don't just need legislation. We need a kind of a UK-wide, a worldwide culture change. Do you know that there is certainly some ire being directed towards the criminal justice system right now? I understand rape prosecutions are at an all the criminal justice system right now. I understand rape prosecutions are at an all-time low in the UK. There is a real serious concern about rape

prosecutions in the UK at the moment. Prosecutions have fallen to a record low this year, having dropped every year since 2017. And we have a quite depressing statistic that only 1.4 of cases reported to the police are being charged by the CPS. So at least 1000 fewer men accused of rape are currently being prosecuted. So rape is something that many campaigners have been saying for years, that the system we have and the way we deal with rape in this country isn't working and that there is a total death of support for women after they have been raped or experienced sexual assault. You know, you mentioned before that you have never seen a conversation like this. Do you actually think that something will come out of this?

That's a really good question. I mean, I hope so. I hope so because the conversation is unprecedented. I think we've seen from the government's response and its focus on immediate easy fixes that there is possibly a desire in some areas of our society to just turn this page quite quickly. I think campaigners and the many women who have been energised and upset by what has happened in the last two weeks will really be trying to make sure that that doesn't happen. You and I are talking on Wednesday morning, our time, Eastern Standard Time. This issue is likely on a lot of people's minds as they're watching developments out of the Atlanta area where eight people were shot and killed. At massage parlors there, six were women of Asian descent.

And I wonder, how would you like to see the conversation around these issues be more inclusive? I think I would like the conversation to shift from being about the women who have been killed and the ways that they did or didn't try and keep themselves safe or the way that their actions may or may not have put them in danger. on the men who have committed these crimes and a focus on the fact that the men who do these things, these awful heinous acts, are so often portrayed as crazy or as just a loose cannon. And I think that that ignores just how endemic violence against women is, not just in the UK, not just in the US, but unfortunately across the globe.

Are you hearing discussions about the need to also focus more on stories of women of colour? So I know, for example, here in Canada, there's been much discussion about how missing and murdered Indigenous women have not received the attention that they deserve. Absolutely. And I think it's really key that we do that. We try and raise up voices that are quite often not heard at The Guardian where I work. But too often, those voices are marginalized, ignored, and silenced. And indeed, we've seen a lot of closures of women's refuges in this country that are directly for black women and women from minority ethnic backgrounds. So there is a real issue about whose stories get heard. And that's why I think experts and campaigners in this field are very

keen that the focus is on the wider issue and looking at the most vulnerable. At the moment, we have a domestic abuse bill going through our parliament. And in many ways, it is a big leap forward. It has many things that campaigners have been calling for for years. But one thing that it doesn't do is give any protections to women with insecure immigration status or who have no access to public funds. The chief executive of Women's Aid over here, who I was speaking to this morning, said, what are we saying there? Are we saying that you only have the right to be protected from male violence if you have the right passport? It just doesn't seem right. Lexi, thank you so much for this conversation. No, thank you. All right, that's all for today.

Thank you so much for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.