Met forced to halt ‘absurd’ convictions over Sarah Everard Vigil
CPS decision to stop criminalisation of women under fast-track justice procedure is further humiliation for UK’s biggest police force
This is my favourite headline that I have read in the last three months. For me it even surpasses the Trump raid. It’s very hard to describe how strange and confusing it has been to find yourself in the middle of the biggest news story in the UK while watching the Met Police week after week do the unthinkable. The last sixteen months have been an extended version of The Thick of It.
That the Met decided to pursue these secret single justice procedure against six people— AFTER the Met lost in high court to us over violating our human right to assemble, Reclaim These Streets, just encapsulates the absolute arrogance and lack of any accountability in the decision making. This is continually underlined by the fact that they refuse to defend any of the decisions on the hundreds of radio and television programs that they are given right of reply on.
When Tristan Kirk from the Evening Standard exclusively revealed that the Met was pursuing criminal charges against some of the attendees, I fired off a tweet about the Met being vindictive. Never in a million years did I expect them to substantiate it a week later:
The Met is still refusing, through obscure reasoning to not admit just how much money they wasted on trying to silence us despite the multiple FOIs filed.
Had they let us go ahead with the originally planned vigil and moment of silence on March 13th; we would have gone back to our normal lives on the 14th. Instead; the poor decision making and inability to be the least bit accountable has led to embarrassment at every turn. Women’s safety is not just about PR. Cressida Dick called us “naive young women that meant well”; well these niave young women have been pretty successful so far.
Now Dania will pursue the Met from the opposite side of court and I will be proudly standing in solidarity with her. I will share the new fundraiser when it becomes available. It is not easy to stand up and fight the Met. It’s scary and isolating, but I am very proud of her that she refused to back down. She is going to release a video about her experience this evening.
Again, I want to thank all of the people that contributed to Dania’s crowdjustice fundraiser and to Pippa Woodrow for being our human rights barrister and for her guidance that we have all so heavily depended on throughout. She is a hero.