Priti Patel: Police must take harassment of women more seriously
Police must take harassment and flashing more seriously, Priti Patel said, as the Met comes under more scrutiny over how violence against women is treated in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.
Forces should “raise the bar” and treat everybody “with respect, dignity and seriously”, the home secretary told the Telegraph, as she dismissed suggestions that street harassment and verbal or physical abuse of women are “low level” in the UK.
Patel’s comments come after it was revealed in court this week that Wayne Couzens took advantage of emergency Covid-19 police measures to falsely arrest and kidnap 33-year-old Sarah Everard, claiming she was in breach of legislation.
It has led to widespread calls for for Dame Cressida Dick to resign as the Met Police commissioner for failure to stop Couzens and to deal with “institutional misogyny” within the police.
“I would say to all women: give voice to these issues, please…,” Patel said.
“There is something so corrosive in society if people think that it’s OK to harass women verbally, physically, and in an abusive way on the street and all that kind of stuff.”
“I want women to have the confidence to call it out. I don’t see all of this as low level.”
Senior Labour MP Harriet Harman called on the commissioner to resign, after Met police officer Wayne Couzens was given a rare, full life sentence at the Old Bailey on Thursday for the murder of Everard.
Harman wrote in a letter addressed to Dick: “Following the heartbreaking and horrifying killing of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan Police officer, women’s confidence will have been shattered.
“Women need to be confident that the police are there to make them safe, and not to put them at risk.
“Women need to be able to trust the police, not to fear them.”