By RORY TINGLE, HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT FOR MAILONLINE and MARTIN ROBINSON, CHIEF REPORTER
October 1, 2021
-Daily Mail
Bus drivers could end up being arrested if they stop to help women following Scotland Yard advice to ‘hail’ them if they are frightened by a police officer after the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, a leading legal expert warned today.
Lawyer and commentator David Green has warned the ‘unrealistic and misconceived’ new guidance by the Met Police could cause chaos and in extreme cases see women Tasered for resisting arrest.
Scotland Yard was today accused of pouring scorn on frightened women after the force’s new ‘deeply insulting’ and ‘derisory’ strategy urged them to ‘wave down a bus’ if they fear being abducted by police.
Its ‘tone deaf’ advice also urges women to ‘run into a house’, ‘shout out to a passer-by’ or call 999 if they don’t trust a policeman who has stopped them.
Mr Green said: ‘Imagine the scenes of a person challenging what may be a lawful arrest by stopping a bus and getting the bus driver involved.
‘It would probably end up with the hapless bus driver being arrested as well.
‘One gets the sense that the writer of this police statement had, by the end of it, ran out of ideas and was winging it like an unprepared student in the last half-hour of an examination.
‘But even the other advice in the statement is unrealistic and misconceived. Anyone challenging arrest can say hello to the offence of resisting or wilfully obstructing a constable in the execution of their duty. They may also say hello to Mr Taser.’
The Met’s advise to flag down a bus has caused particular anger and MPs today called for an independent inquiry into the murder of Sarah Everard and how the Metropolitan Police failed to root out Wayne Couzens – a serving armed officer who would go on to abduct and kill the marketing executive using his warrant card and cuffs.
The inquiry would look at Sarah’s murder and Couzens use of his powers to kidnap her – but also cases involving police officers and staff who attacked women as well as the 10 murders of women in capital in the past year including Sabina Nessa in Kidbrooke a fortnight ago and sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry in last year. Officers guarding the crime scene shared selfies with their bodies.
Today former Met Commissioner Lord Stevens said there had been ‘extraordinary blunders’ in the run up to Sarah’s murder and the forces’ vetting system is not ‘fit for purpose’ because he slipped through the net and went go on to commit the appalling crimes.
He said: ‘The fact that this individual in 2015 was seen to be driving around without any clothes on from his waist downwards, the fact he was called a rapist, the fact that he was a really strange individual, I mean there is no way that that man should have been given a gun. A proper vetting process, the vetting process is obviously not fit for the purpose and this needs all to be changed, it’s an extraordinary story of blunders and of that there’s no doubt’.
Jess Phillips, Labour’s shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, said the advice is ‘tone deaf’, adding she ‘would have got in the car and almost anybody would have got in the car’ and ‘the onus is on the Metropolitan Police to do better’.
Shadow cabinet member Wes Streeting said: ‘Apparently bus drivers should stop if someone is waving them down in the street away from a bus stop, just in case, because that’s a better answer than the Met getting their act together?! Utterly woeful’.
As another crisis engulfed the Met, Policing minister Kit Malthouse admitted the case had struck a ‘devastating blow to the confidence that people have in police officers’, and he warned thousands of officers will need to do more so trust can be rebuilt.
Women in London have said that they would now run away if faced with a lone officer after Wayne Couzens staged an arrest using lockdown laws to abduct, rape and murder Sarah on March 3.
One said she would be ‘scared, frightened and try to get away from them because I wouldn’t trust any policeman again after what happened to Sarah’. Another said: ‘If it happened to me I’d be so worried I’d just get into my car and drive’.
As The Met and its Commissioner face yet another crisis, it also emerged today:
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- The Met knew a ‘Wayne Couzens’ was suspected of flashing two women at McDonald’s three days before Sarah Everard‘s murder – but failed to identify him as one of their own officers until afterwards;
- Detectives from the Met Police are actively investigating if killer cop Wayne Couzens is connected to any further historic crimes;
- Couzens exchanged misogynistic, racist and homophobic texts with his police colleagues who are now facing a criminal investigation. 16 officers are being probed;
- Met chief Cressida Dick still faces a clamour to resign after she admitted Sarah Everard’s murder had corroded trust in the police and brought ‘shame’ on her force;
It came as Dame Cressida Dick came under more pressure to resign over the scandal – and to fix the force’s toxic culture – after it emerged Couzens exchanged misogynistic, racist and homophobic texts with his police colleagues.
Dame Cressida said yesterday she was ‘sorry’ and ‘sickened’ at how Couzens was able to abuse his position but refused to quit as female officers claimed they were afraid to report their male colleagues for misconduct because they ‘close ranks’ and could abandon them on calls where they would have their ‘heads kicked in’ while waiting for backup.
Since March 2020 when Sarah Everard, 33, was murdered by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, 48, some 77 women have been killed, according to Rape Crisis. Two weeks ago, primary school teacher Sabina Nessa, 28, was found dead in a park also in south London, described in court as a ‘predatory’ murder.
Legal experts have predicted that bus drivers stopping for women could get arrested themselves.
As part if its new strategy, the Met has pledged to deploy 650 new officers and increase patrols to do more to protect women and girls in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder by Couzens – but critics questioned why they weren’t doing that already.
And anyone stopped on the street is encouraged to call 999 or use the officer’s radio to confirm their warrant card is genuine – but many have pointed out that many not have stopped Couzens kidnapping Sarah because his warrant card and number was genuine.
Even Sir Stephen House, the Met’s deputy commissioner, admitted yesterday that warrant cards may not be enough for officers to prove their identity in future.
Patsy Stevenson, who was arrested at the vigil for Sarah Everard in March, said the Metropolitan Police’s suggestions of knocking on a door or waving a bus down were ‘almost laughable if it wasn’t so disgusting’.
The force advised anyone who is concerned a police officer is not acting legitimately during an interaction to ask where the officer’s colleagues are; where they have come from; why they are there; and exactly why they are stopping or talking to them.
Anyone could verify the police officer by asking to hear their radio operator or asking to speak to the radio operator themselves, the force said, also suggesting that people who are concerned can shout out to a passer-by, run into a house, knock on a door, wave a bus down, or call 999.
Ms Stevenson told the PA news agency: ‘I feel like they are just clutching at straws, because the advice isn’t relevant. It’s like a distraction because, number one, in that situation, you can’t just stop and hail down a bus or a taxi or something.
‘Can you imagine the distrust that people have right now where they have to protect themselves from the police in that manner? That is shocking.’
She said if someone had done something illegal it is the police giving them permission to run off, adding: ‘It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like an irrelevant piece of advice. So I feel like it reads more like a distraction for them to seem like they’re dealing with the issue, because they could have been enacting change for ages now, but they haven’t, and they’re still not doing it, they’re just putting out a statement to quieten people down.’
The chairman of the Commons Justice Committee has said the Government should consider making misogyny a hate crime in the way that racism was following the Macpherson Inquiry into the killing of Stephen Lawrence.
Tory MP Sir Bob Neill told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One: ‘One of the things that was good after Macpherson was that it was recognised in due course that racism ought to be regarded as a particularly aggravating feature.
‘We have made racially motivated offences a hate crime. I think there is a case now for looking at misogyny.’
Women have said that the new advice piles more pressure on them – rather than tackling violent men – with some saying that it ‘grossly insulting’ with the Met accused of releasing a guide to ‘what they believe Sarah should have done’.
Comedian Sooz Kempner said: ‘It’s deeply insulting to Sarah’s memory, her family and to women everywhere to now have ‘in future, ladies, here’s what you can do that Sarah failed to do to’ spouted at us when taking some form of action against the man nicknamed ‘the rapist’ by colleagues was always an option’.
She added: ‘Waving down a bus when you’re not even at a bus stop is a complete impossibility anyway, they don’t stop, you’d be lucky to get a second glance from the driver. And I dunno if you’ve heard but buses aren’t just constantly driving down every single road 24/7’.
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy said: ‘We want to know what the Met are doing to address the deeply rooted problems with violence against women within the force. This completely derisory advice shows they’re still not taking it seriously. And they wonder why trust is at an all-time low?’
Left-wing commentator Ash Sarkar said: ‘Wayne Couzens was nicknamed ‘The Rapist’, shared racist and misogynistic messages with colleagues, and committed indecent in a car registered to him 72 hours before murdering someone. But it’s Sarah Everard who should’ve waved down a bus’.
Writer Oriane Messina said: ‘Don’t go out alone at night. Don’t wear short dresses. Don’t trust an officer on his own. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t draw attention to yourself. Don’t drink too much. Don’t be flashy. Don’t be too weak looking. HANG ON…. How about telling men don’t rape and murder women’.
Lord Justice Fulford said his decision to hand Couzens, 48, a whole-life tariff was significantly influenced by the way he had exploited his role as a police officer, a fact he said made the offence equal in seriousness to a murder carried out by a terrorist.
The force has announced that 650 new officers will be deployed in public places to better protect women and girls in the wake of Miss Everard’s murder.
After stinging criticism over its handling of the case, the force vowed to increase patrols and publish a new strategy for tackling violence against women.
The strategy will outline how the Met will prioritise action against sexual and violent predatory offenders.
The force said it had also set up ‘predatory offender units’, which have arrested more than 2,000 suspects for domestic abuse, sex offences, and child abuse since November.
The 650 new officers will be sent into busy public places, including areas where women and girls ‘lack confidence that they are safe’, the Met said. The force will ‘step up’ patrols and provide an increased police presence in areas identified as hotspot locations for violence and harassment.
A Met Police spokesman said: ‘The full horrific details of [Wayne Couzens’] crimes are deeply concerning and raise entirely legitimate questions. This is the most horrific of crimes, but we recognise this is part of a much bigger and troubling picture.’
The spokesman said other recent murders ‘bring into sharp focus our urgent duty to do more to protect women and girls’.
Charity Rape Crisis warned ‘women cannot keep themselves safe’ and blasted ‘a culture that trivialises and condones rape and sexual violence’ as well as saying the justice system was ‘systematically flawed’.
And it said women who ‘do not stick to the arbitary and ineffective rulebook’ deserved to be treated with respect as victims of crime and to enjoy the same freedoms as men – such as walking in a park at night.
It pointed to rape jokes going unchallenged, the expectation that men in the workplace behave decisively, the ‘entitled’ attitude of men who expect sexual interactions, and it suggested the murders of white women are given preferential treatment in the press.
Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, wrote: ‘The visceral grief so many of us felt after the murder of Sarah Everard in March was real.
‘The horrific details that have emerged this week at the sentencing of her murderer – not even two weeks after the tragic death of Sabina Nessa – have compounded this pain and brought into sharp reality that the fear we are raised to feel, though far from healthy, is legitimate.
‘From an early age, we teach girls and women that our safety in public spaces is not something that we can or should count on, and it is our responsibility to keep ourselves safe from an ever-present threat.
‘We are spoon-fed ‘solutions’ of holding keys between our fingers and sticking to the lit side of the path.
‘We rarely stop to consider that, in telling girls and women we can prevent violence, what we are really doing is falsely telling those who experience such harm that they could or should have done something differently’.
