‘No one is listening’: Demonstrators storm courts to highlight police violence against women

Women tell Maya Oppenheim that police are ‘rotten to the core’

Hundreds of rape alarms could be heard screeching while vivid green and purple smoke billowed outside the historic Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday afternoon.

Scores of protesters descended on the 139-year-old towering Victorian gothic building to voice their fears about police treatment of women.

Sisters Uncut, a feminist direct action group, stormed into the landmark to deliver a complaint condemning the police for violence perpetrated against women within their own ranks.

While security guards grabbed demonstrators, causing many to shout in shock, banners adorned with the words ‘Met Police Blood on Your Hands!’ blew in the wind.

“I am here to raise awareness of the abuse of police powers,” said Patsy Stevenson, whose image went viral online after she was pinned down by two male officers at a vigil paying tribute to Sarah Everard in spring.

“No one is listening. The police are so close to the justice system nothing happens to them. Priti Patel says she is listening yet she is creating more police powers which are not want we want. Priti Patel needs to start listening to women and girls.”

The 28-year-old, who is studying physics at university, said many people assume police brutality is infrequent but if you are in marginalised communities, it happens “the whole time”.

Ms Stevenson said she had never been to a protest before attending the vigil for Everard - a 33-year-old woman who was brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer back in March. “It was the first time I went to a proper protest and I was arrested,” she added.

Patsy Stevenson (Furvah Shah)

Met Police officers were criticised for aggressively grabbing women paying tribute to Everard at the peaceful vigil in Clapham in south London before taking them away while others screamed and cried out.

“Since Sarah Everard’s murder, conversations about police violence have become more mainstream,” a woman, who has been involved in Sisters Uncut since 2016 but did not to be named, said.

“The police are framing it as a problem with individual police but Wayne Couzens is not a one-off. Police abuse their powers. It is not one bad apple. They are rotten to the core. Policing is about violence and control so it attracts people who are drawn to violence and control. The police force protects violent men.”

Everard’s death has eroded trust in the police, as well as fuelling anger the government does not do enough to tackle violence against women. Her tragic death also triggered an outpouring of women sharing highly personal stories about being sexually harassed, assaulted, or abused by men on the street.

“Sarah Everard’s murder was the extreme end of a wider culture that condones violence within the police. This year has been a watershed: we now know 15 officers have killed women since 2009,” Sisters Uncut and Feminist Fightback, another group who organised the protest, said in a statement issued to The Independent.

“The circumstances around Wayne Couzens illustrate our message clearly: his colleagues called him ‘The Rapist’, he exposed himself several times, he sent vile, violent messages.

“And while police are totally unaccountable for their violence against us, courts in Bristol are handing down draconian sentences to Kill the Bill protesters who stood up to police violence. There is one rule for us and another for the police.”

Lisa Longstaff, who helped organise the protest, said women of colour, sex workers, and single mothers were far less likely to have allegations of police-perpetrated violence robustly investigated.

“When these men are violent in the police in or in other institutions and are abusing their power, nothing happens,” Ms Longstaff, who is part of Women Against Rape, added. “The police have been caught on the back foot. We know of serving police and former police who are worried about the policing bill but they can’t say.”

The comments come after a new “888” tracking service for women travelling alone – proposed by BT and backed by home secretary Priti Patel – was dismissed last month as “terribly misguided” and “flawed” by campaigners who fear freedoms and privacy are being eroded.

Lisa Longstaff and Cristel Amiss (Furvah Shah)

Meanwhile, the government’s controversial new policing bill has been widely criticised by campaigners for rolling back human rights – with many fearing the legislation will compound the pre-existing over-policing and criminalisation of marginalised communities.

“Look at the figures of deaths in custody - that is in police stations and in mental health services,” Cristel Amiss, a life-long activist who was at the protest, said. “Men are concerned too. This is a seminal moment.”