CN: sexual assault, murder, rape, police violence, Sarah Everard, indecent exposure
Sarah Everard’s murder has echoed inside me in places I did not know or, at least, did not care to acknowledge.
Reading through the reports from Couzens’ hearing the horror which permeated the reports came not from his actions, but from reading what we had already imagined to be the final hours of Sarah’s life once we were told Wayne Couzens was a police officer.
As someone who was raised a girl, I have played out the scenario of being abducted over and over: how I would escape, how I would signal for help, in some cases mentally ranking my preferred ways of being murdered. And I don’t think I’m alone on this.
The reality is, I have never been assaulted by someone I didn’t already know. The news reports of Sarah’s disappearance last March sparked a huge response because, in theory, Sarah had mitigated her abduction – walking home she had done all the things we’re told to do to prevent assault and it still did not work. Nothing could ever work, the myths we tell each other and ourselves, the knowledge we share to keep each other safe only works to make us feel safer.
Sarah’s abduction, rape, and murder is not a tale of the monster-in-the-alleyway. Yes, Sarah did not know her attacker but, at some point, she trusted him.
The police hold a distinct place in our safety, we are often taught to rely on the police to prevent crimes and to report assault – the cries of “well why didn’t she report it?!” in retort to every #metoo story and every historic rape case tells us that if we don’t trust the police no one else will validate our experience enough to be believed.
This demand placed on us to trust the police is troubled when we know that rape and assault cases are inadequately investigated, and we fear for our wellbeing once we enter the legal-justice system by whom we are often profiled and respond to us with hostility and suspicion.
Wayne Couzens is said to have hired a car 3 days before abducting Sarah, days before Sarah’s disappearance it is alleged that Couzens had publicly exposed himself. It terrifies me that these dates could have overlapped.
We will now never know if the reports of incident exposure had been acted whether Couzens could have been stopped sooner. We do know, that the little belief and resource is available to those who report sex-crimes prevents us from reporting and from seeing the police as a safe institution.
These allegations would not be the first againt Couzens who was allowed to remain in the police despite allegations from 2015. But when he used his police powers to stop Sarah in the street she did not know any of this, and how could she?
We cannot view the case through the lens of “Stranger Danger”, Sarah had no choice in that moment but to trust him despite the fact she did not know him. We are all taught to comply with the police or risk more dire consequences than arrest.
We also cannot approach the incident as a lone case which does not represent wider policing body. The reports of inter-partner violence and sexual assault perpetrated by police officers is staggering, no other profession could rack up numbers that high – yeah not even Doctors*.
We cannot be safe while the police operate under such immunity, we cannot be safe while politicians advocate and legislate for more police powers.
We must use our horror and our anger to resist, to intervene when we see an arrest, and to stop the Policing Bill. We must hold the police to account for every abuse, every death in police custody, ever poorly investigated sexual assault.
Y’never know you might just save a life, and isn’t that awful?
*if I hear one more person straw-man Harold Shipman I will scream until I crack glass.