Is the Angiolini report a turning point in tackling violence against women?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, how would a good Samaritan law work to make women's lives safer? But first, four years after the murder of Sarah Everard in Clapham, a damning report from the Angelini Inquiry has revealed that more than a quarter of police forces in England and Wales have not implemented basic policies for investigating sexual offences. The latest stage of the Angelini inquiry found that urgent action is now needed to prevent further violent sexual attacks against women and girls.

0:54It found that crimes are widespread, criticised limited data and called for urgent action to prevent predators from offending. Home Secretary Shibana Mahmood said the government would carefully consider the recommendations. Sarah Everard was a 33-year-old marketing executive who was abducted, raped and murdered by former armed Metropolitan Police Officer Wayne Cousins in March 2021. He had used his status as a police officer to trick her into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules as she walked home from a friend's house in South London. The Angelini Inquiry was launched after Miss Everard's death to investigate how Cousins was able to carry out his crimes and look at wider issues within policing and women's safety.

1:42Last year, the first phase of the independent investigation published its findings into Cousins' policing career and discovered he should never have been given a job as a police officer. The inquiry found chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed and warned that without a radical overhaul of policing practices and culture, there is nothing to stop another cousin's operating in plain sight. Here's what Home Office Minister Jess Phillips had to say in response to the publication of the second part of the Angelini inquiry report. The report starkly highlights that many women do not feel safe due to the actions and behaviours of predatory men and they are assuming the burdens of their own protection themselves through avoidance measures such as not going out at night, avoiding dark streets and modifying their use of public transport.

2:37This is, as we all know, utterly unacceptable. As the Inquiry Chair, Lady Eilish Angelini, puts it so clearly in the report, somehow we have simply come to accept that many women do not feel safe walking in the streets. This is a substantial and significant report and I would urge all members to read it in full. And while it acknowledges that there is a range of ongoing work which seeks to prevent these terrible crimes and disrupt predators, it also highlights that there is no quick fix and demands a more consistent approach across the whole of society to address and prevent this violence. Today's publication underlines why it is so vital that every agency and every sector does more to protect women from harm.

3:24This government is resolute. The fact that women do not feel safe going about their everyday lives is a national emergency. And joining me now is The Standards' Chief Political Correspondent, Rachel Burford. Rachel, remind us why this inquiry was set up and what it has uncovered so far. So the Angelini Inquiry was set up in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Cousins, a shocking crime that sparked national outrage. The fact that not only could a woman be abducted from the streets by a stranger, but it was by a man who works in a job where he was there to protect members of the public.

4:05It was obviously an absolutely shocking murder. Not only was this, you know, a 33 year old woman kidnapped from the streets of South London by a stranger, it was by a man who worked in a job, you know, his job was protecting members of the public. Her murder was in March 2021. So this inquiry was set up in the wake of that about how this could happen. I think a lot of women after this event, it put women's safety in the spotlight and did sort of reinforce to a lot of women what we've known for a long time is that it can be quite a dangerous world for us. So this report was set up, it's in three stages.

4:44Part one of the reports already come out and that was about Zahra Evrard's murder and how a police officer was able to adopt, rape and murder her. Part two was released on December 2nd, and that is to establish if there is a risk or a reoccurrence, essentially, across policing and to investigate police culture and to address the broader concerns surrounding women's safety. And there will be a part three as well, which will focus on former police officer David Carrick, who has been convicted of a string of horrendous sex offences. so that is kind of the background it has sort of raised a lot of questions about women's safety and how police officers are dealing with crimes against women particularly sex crimes.

5:27What has Lady Angelini specifically condemned in this report? This report is quite damning. It found there is a critical failure to answer basic questions about sex crimes against women and that includes things like how many women are raped by strangers each year, Lady Eilish Angelini did a sort of briefing to press ahead of the report coming out. She found that there just isn't the correct data or the data is totally incomplete on offences and it's very difficult to obtain patchy, incomplete, and that has really sort of hindered her report and her investigation. You know, she said it's of great concern that there is basic questions that cannot be answered.

6:05No one could confidently tell her how many women nationally report being the victims of sexually motivated crimes in public. The gap in knowledge was that fundamentally impacted her ability to assess how effective current measures are at preventing these crimes. She said she found the forces couldn't answer basic questions like how many women were raped by strangers in public spaces as opposed to someone known to them. And she said there is limited data on sexual assault and indecent exposure. And if we look at things like Sarah Everard's case, when it came out that it was a serving police officer that committed the horrendous crime.

6:39A lot of things came out about him after his arrest and subsequent conviction that concerns had been raised about him for many years. And even in the days leading up to Sarah Everard's kidnapping murder, he had been exposing himself publicly. And those crimes were essentially ignored. Police were called, but there was no proper investigation into them. And if there had been, perhaps Sarah's death could have been prevented. I think Lady Eilish said that too many perpetrators are still slipping through the cracks. The police system is overworked, as are prisons and probation services. They're all overstretched and underfunded.

7:18And although the government has classed violence against women and girls as a national threat, not enough effective prevention is being taken to stop it. Prevention, she said, in this space remains just words. Until this disparity is addressed, violence against women and girls cannot credibly be called a national priority. And how do you feel about these findings? The report does reinforce what a lot of women have known for a long time in that the world can be quite a dangerous place for women when they're out and about. It does reinforce this idea that often too much emphasis has been put on women to keep themselves safe, not enough emphasis on perpetrators.

7:56It's often about women making themselves unsafe by being out alone, being out late at night, what they're wearing. Whereas is it shouldn't be about that. The emphasis should be on predominantly men not to harm and attack women. So the report has sort of reinforced ideas of what women have known for a long time. And I think we saw in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder, when it came out that a serving police officer had been arrested for the crime, you saw the Met Police's response to that. And it was sort of quite bizarre. They put out a statement sort of telling women that if they are approached by a police officer and they don't feel or who they think is a police officer and they don't feel safe, they should maybe flag down a passing bus or something.

8:39And there was this sort of outrage by women that the people that are there to keep us safe don't really have any way of doing that and seem to be completely clueless about women's safety and how they can keep half the population safe from the other half. Let's go to an ad break. Coming up, Four years on from Sarah Everard's tragic murder, have we reached a turning point in tackling violence against women? We'll see you back here in just a moment. Welcome back. Now, Rachel, it's all very well saying there are huge gaps in data, but what needs to change so that these patterns of offending can be spotted?

9:23The report made 13 recommendations, including improved data collection and the national awareness campaign and prioritising prevention. One of the recommendations was quite interesting. It was for a Good Samaritan law, which would require witnesses to act when they see someone in danger. So that would essentially say the public should be asked to act to help prevent sex crimes against women. How that would work in practice, I don't know. But it has been welcomed by the aunt of 35-year-old Zara Alina. She was stalked, assaulted and murdered in Ilford in June 2022. She welcomed that her aunt, Farah Naz, praised the report for its consideration of the wider structures and cultural patterns and operational weaknesses that put women and girls at risk.

10:11but she said she was encouraged to see support for exploring a good Samaritan law in the UK and you know putting forward this idea that there is a clear expectation to act if you see someone in danger. And we heard from Jess Phillips in the introduction but how have others reacted to this news? So the Home Secretary has released a statement as well. Shabana Mahmood said four years on from Sarah Everard's tragic murder her thoughts are with the family and those who loved her. She said she will do everything she can to ensure women and girls can live free from fear and harm. She says a new£13.1 million centre will strengthen the police response to these crimes and drive real change.

10:50But she does acknowledge that more needs to be done. She said that the Home Office is going to consider every recommendation in the inquiry and the government has made a pledge to have violence against women and girls within a decade. The government does have its violence against women and girls strategy coming up and she said that will you know lay out how they will achieve that that aim what has been interesting about it is it includes a really powerful statement from sarah everard's mother susan who she talks about the huge impact that her daughter's death had on her and she says i'll read some of it out actually it's really sort of it is very tragic and quite heartbreaking she says i'm not yet at the point where happy memories of sarah come to the fore when i think of her i can't get past the horror of her last hours, I'm still tormented by the thought of what she endured.

11:37Often we get these reports after tragic events, but this one has a real person at the centre of it. Sarah Everard's murder was an extremely shocking crime, a rare one. This report does lay out the fact that women are being assaulted, are living in fear and are being attacked every day in this country to varying degrees. And that while this case was rare, we have seen since this case came out, since this horrible crime happened, that there have been numerous Met police officers arrested, thrown out of the force and charged with quite horrific crimes, many of them against women. So this is something that is happening every day.

12:24And violence against women, sexual assault is something that's happening every day. Police forces are not dealing with it in the way that they should be. And they are under-resourced. It is not taken seriously enough. And it is something that will continue to keep happening with relative impunity if nothing is done. Finally, do you think this report is encouraging then in that it's actually trying to take the situation seriously? Yeah, exactly. There's so much talk about tackling violence against women. And this government says it is committed to bringing those numbers down and to protecting women but it really is a mammoth task because there is a culture within some police forces that it feels like every week there is a story about police officers coming out about how they are not acting in the way that they should how they make derogatory remarks about women and they are not working in the way that they should to protect them and I think this report does lay out that there is a mammoth task ahead of the government if they want to bring down violence against women and they want police officers police forces to be taking it more seriously

13:34and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow morning We'll see you then.