Police Academy: Coronation Special
After their unlawful behaviour over the Sarah Everard Vigil, the police double down.
Ed Note: Thank you to Mic Wright for reporting on this, it is the only way that I knew about it and the world found out. https://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy
The Met arrested three Women’s Safety volunteers at 2 am early Saturday morning in Soho. This is what the volunteers were wearing.
Whilst the Met held on to their three suspects, they had fifteen hours to come up with an excuse, any excuse that would at least satisfy their die hard (and very loud) contingent of twitter avatars with about 12 followers that attack women like me constantly for daring to speak up about abuse of power.
I would love to have been a fly in the wall during those discussions, because their reasoning for arresting their own volunteers is certainly a doozy. The level of mental gymnastics that their statement takes to make any reasonable sense is astronomical.
Night Stars is a Metropolitan Police supported ongoing initiative. They wear pink high viz jackets branded as part of a Metropolitan Police initiative and undergo extensive training because they will be dealing with vulnerable women to help them get home safe. Volunteers have a patch where they actively circulate the area, looking for women that may be in need of assistance. Volunteers are expected to donate a weekend night a month of their time.
Had the Met been concerned about Night Stars doing thier normal weekend work; the time to ask that they not give out rape alarms or help women home in the name of the King would have been in the weeks or months leading up to the Coronation. It would not be down to the three volunteers who were just doing what they are meant to do.
Night Stars volunteers were doing their previously scheduled volunteer shift on Friday night in Soho. That Night Stars was in operation this weekend had nothing to do with the Coronation. The organisation does this every weekend. It’s been so successful that other councils are taking Westminster’s lead and expanding into other areas. I know this because I was meant to shadow the Camden volunteers on Thursday night through the work I do as a founder of Reclaim These Streets and a Camden resident.
If we are to believe the Met, we would have to accept that these three Night Stars volunteers had signed up months ago and undergone training in the hopes that they would be given access and opportunity to disrupt the Coronation with Rape Alarms. Rape Alarms that retail for about £3 each.
We would need to believe that these three volunteers, including a 59 year old woman, a 37 year old woman and 47 year old man, took the rape alarms that Night Stars carry to give out with the intention of criminally hurting horses on the Mall. Unless you have never previously worked with a council or volunteered, you may be under the impression that these systems are easily manipulated; in actuality, unless you do the same volunteer job every Friday night for a year, you are very unlikely to be assigned to the same outreach team more than once.
Also, the women you are giving rape alarms to at 2 am in Soho are likely to be pissed, they are not likely to be the ones up at the crack of dawn to get prime position to watch the festivities. They weren’t anywhere near the route, they weren’t knocking on tents to distribute rape alarms. They were literally going about their routine and job as a safety volunteer in a different area of town.
If these three unlikely bedfellows were the criminal masterminds and ready to commit conspiracy, why would they ever do it through an organisation like Night Stars? Why wouldn’t they just buy a box of rape alarms and hand them out nilly willy to every passerby with a time to set them off? It doesn’t make any sense. And would be a hugely inefficient way of causing disruption; especially as the three volunteers would also likely be in bed by the time King Charles was coming down the Mall.
None of this passes the smell test and the Met know it. They knew it when they put up their initial statement about “throwing” rape alarms which was deleted ten minutes later and softened. Deleting with the initial statement over 600 critical comments about their behaviour.
Councilwoman Aicha Less has this to say about her volunteers. “We are deeply concerned by reports of our Night Stars volunteers being arrested overnight. This service has been a familiar and welcome sight in the West End for a long time and have extensive training so they can assist the most vulnerable on the streets late at night. “
Having beat the Met in court over their violation of my human rights as a co-founder of Reclaim These Streets; I know first hand the lengths the Met will go to justify their officer’s bad judgment and behaviour. They have form. This case is no exception and is an embarrassment and a disgrace.
Someone on twitter quipped about Women’s Safety Campaigners being the most unlikely to get arrested by the Met, but here we are. Once again the Met has scored an own goal. Bravo. Bravo.