Why I am no longer doing UK interviews about the American election

Setting boundaries and saying no.

A few weeks ago, I was describing what it was like to go from only having ever been behind the scenes to sparring on television and radio when the then Commissioner Cressida Dick unlawfully stopped us from holding a vigil for Sarah Everard.  My ability to deliver short and punchy answers and lots of sound bites felt like I had found my calling.  It felt like Mock Trial or debating in high school but live and with higher stakes.  And because my anger was funnelled and delivered to the public, it felt useful and effective.  Given that I was fighting the power by way of national media, the interviews didn’t usually rattle me, with the exception of being outside of court on the day when Wayne Couzen’s was sentenced and Sabina Nessa’s family were also at the Old Bailey. That was too much and I lost my composure.  I also had lost my belief that the Met would actually enact reforms.

This was after Cressida Dick belittled us to the Home Affairs committee and said we were ‘naive young women that meant well.’ Well this young woman (young is now a stretch) contributed to her losing her job. I’ve dined out on that for the last few years, but she was replaced by more of the same, albeit with a little bit better PR. But the Met will not be fixed by more of the same.

No matter how many reviews or inquiries by brilliant and dedicated power houses of women (Casey and Angiolini) they will not improve. Mark Rowley’s Met is still shielding rapists. Mark Rowley’s Met is still more worried about headlines than women’s lives. Mark Rowley’s Met is systemically racist, sexist and homophobic. And has still not disbanded the Parliamentary Protection Unit. Mark Rowley’s Met hired Cliff Mitchell, the suspect in the rape of a nine year old. Mark Rowley’s Met fobbed a victim of a current officer off with “double jeopardy” over a misconduct hearing. Mark Rowley’s Met only pays lip service to women’s safety in his organisation and on the streets.

Women are no safer in Mark Rowley’s Met. Imagine if the findings of the Macpherson report had actually been responded to. Imagine if Nusrit Mehtab had been put in charge of strengthening the pipe line for BAME candidates. Imagine if her numerous complaints over a 30 year career hadn’t caused more abuse.

Imagine if they actually wanted to improve. And not with a bogeyman list of a hundred baddies, not with a press roll out of saying that he was accepting all findings but not the main one of institutional rot. They have no incentive to improve. The system is intentional. And why would you change a system that benefits you and people like you.

Yet, I keep fighting. I fight for a woman who has waiting 2000 days for her hearing to finally see the light of day. To discredit her, they contacted her GP to say she was delusional. Luckily her GP was enraged by this breach and told her. On August 1st, I invite you to join me for her long awaited hearing. I have been in touch with her through the years of trying to be heard and believed and for him face her allegations.

She is why I continue to fight. I fight for Charlotte who only just found out that her rapist was never charged with rape. This is years after her ordeal and countless fights with the Met for acknowledgement of how traumatic her experience was at the hands of police. She did not even know they didn’t charge him.

Both of these women and I testified to the Casey Review. All of us were treated with precision questioning and respect for fighting to force improvement.

Every survivor I speak to fights, not for their own relief, but to protect other women. To make sure that they don’t also suffer.

Generally, I am not worried if my voice cracks or I show how personally I take the responsibility that survivors have given me, trusting me with their stories and their rage when they don’t feel capable or safe enough to speak their truth.  I am able to serve this purpose because it is not traumatic (usually) to be their advocate. And the community of survivors and campaigners is incredible and the work can lead to despair.

People ask if I get nervous before interviews, and now, I usually don’t, especially if it is live. If it is live, I rarely see the appearance and I am on to the next one.  And I try to avoid searching my name afterwards, and I no longer open DMs given how often they are unsolicited dick picks if I am on telly.  

But I’ve realised what I can and can’t do press about.  Last weekend I tied myself in knots over an interview about Trump and Biden for BBC Wales.  The rational part of me knew that no one listening would be voting and if they were, they would not be influenced by my point of view.  Women that have justified voting for a rapist and misogynist aren’t going to suddenly agree with my disgust and rage and all it does is send me into a spiral of horror. 

And the fear is warranted. Trump is exactly who he said he is. And out for Trump and Trump alone. Democracy will be a pipe dream of the past.

This week I declined three interviews about Biden and Trump.  It isn’t good for my mental health and I don’t feel like I am doing a service to anyone when the interviews end.  And I am too emotional, horrified and scared to come across as rational and intelligent.  I don’t give interviews just to get my name and face out there and when I am talking about police reform or male violence in the UK– I know who I am representing and why, I take the responsibility of the trust and platform seriously and hope I do victims proud. I hope I inform, enrage and inspire people to take a beat and think about what change is possible.  

But with Trump, it’s just to fill air time and be a spectacle.  It is not serving the audience a purpose and has no impact. I am devastated that a woman’s right to choose and medical autonomy has been robbed of us, whilst Trump’s ability to lie cheat and steal and incite insurrection has been not only permitted but rewarded by a corrupt Supreme Court, but my saying so will not change it.  And it defeats me.  It takes away my agency and worth and terrifies me.  

But I have an out.  I get to live here in London.  I often get asked why I was not political or campaigning in America– and the honest answer is that almost all of my adulthood has been here (22 years) and guns.  

Here, the outrage over Sarah’s murder compelled me to use my skills for the collective betterment of society for women, all women, especially those whose disappearances and murders at the hands of their partners aren’t even reported on.  Here I can fight back and be noticed. Here I am able to write for national papers about the lack of tangible efforts to value women’s experience, I am able to hold the police to account,— even if they continuously ignore me. I am able to voice my suggestions for progress and I am able to watch Angela Rayner and Bell Riberio-Addy and Jess Phillips and Caroline Noakes and Alex Davies Jones and Dawn Butler do the work day in and day out to fight male violence against women. 

I am able to watch Diane Abbott become the Mother of the House.

These are women I have worked with when cameras were not present. None of them have to reiterate that my life and safety is important. They are me. I stand with our elected representative in solidarity and faith that this new dawn will be better and safer for women and girls and not just performatively to score political points.  They are braver than I am and they tolerate so much abuse for daring to be power houses that won’t be silenced. I am in awe of your resilliance and commitment to your country and communities. And grateful to your families for letting us have so much of you despite risks. I struggled to leave my bed when fake porn of me was sent to my father. I have struggled to date or trust that people aren’t trying to make a fool of me or find out where I live. And it is small fry, 10% of my DMs and nowhere near the volume that the women above face, let alone the miogynoir that I have never faced.

My little taste of appearing in the media has left me broken at times and reaching out to the police about suspected abuse from other police. But knowing that the elected women above have the power needed to actually make progress, that lets me sleep at night. Well maybe not tonight as I had to get this out.

Thank you for your service and commitment and determination to keep going and keep leading the fight. You are all incredible and the work matters, you make me matter. And I am so grateful.

In London, I am able to contribute and impact real change. I am able to attend parliamentary round tables with Glamour Magazine on Deep Fakes.  And we actually got the law changed, well they did the huge amount of leg work, and were there to bear witness to what I have been subjected to. I am part of the conversation about male perpetrated violence and have done hundreds of interviews and events to change the conversation. To fight and to remove obstacles and excuses, like the NPCC appointing a Czar of Violence Against Women that didn’t have budget or clout— who hosted ineffective quarterly “task force” meetings— only to take any actual concerns or issues offline to meetings that never materialised. The meetings were 30 minutes of going around the room and then surprise surprise we had no time to actually have input. I attending these meetings for 18 months, without a single action point seen to have been done.

I complained and led a critical response to the lip service being paid, and was removed from the task force without being informed. Quietly Maggie Blythe has been promoted and assumed other duties whilst supposedly still being the Czar. And once again, a figure head white woman will rise through the ranks despite not serving the community they are meant to. If you play by the rules of policing and replicate senior men’s loyalty to the status quo, you will be rewarded. Dick demonstrated again and again, the communities she was a member of mattered less than the reputation of the Met.

I will never forget meeting with her the day after the picture of Patsy Stevens dominated the press and even the Mail declared that the Met had lost the plot. Dick was late and tried to avoid speaking about the vigil and started with “As a woman.” I asked her point blank knowing what she knew now about how the vigil played out what she would do differently and she answered” absolutely nothing”. I guess at least she was honest about not giving a shit about our human rights. I then asked if she would at least waive the fines of the four women arrested, and she replied “absolutely not” and that I could write her a letter.

And her antagonism and impunity created a beast in me. A beast that keeps going and going and was my first real taste of how little the Met cares about the women they are supposed to protect and serve.

Once again, women that play the game by the game keeper’s rules succeed. As long as you toe the party line and stay popular among those in the seat of power, you get promoted, once again rank and ease are more important than my safety.

And please note, the only reason I even met Maggie was because I publicly demanded an audience. And yet, the meeting still began with typical bullshit about “we invited you in” to hear about your needs and wants. In the 300+ interviews I have done since Sarah’s murder, the police have not used their right of reply and Maggie has never sat opposite me publicly for accountability.

Likewise, I have not met Mark Rowley. I have been stood down for news programs because he is appearing. There has been no outreach or attempt to work with Reclaim These Streets or me personally. And I have asked for an audience in national newspapers and on radio and television multiple times. Instead another worthless report using stats from ten years ago to say violence against women is a priority.

If you only care about my safety because I am an annoying gnat on every radio and tv show, or as a father of daughters, don’t bother. This week Grant Shapps tried to say any military action we take is to protect women and girls. We are not protected in your own country. Misogyny wasn’t made a hate crime because it would “overwhelm police”. An acting commissioner Stephen House was to have allegedly said that the “bulk of rapes are regretful sex.” But just like how investigators don’t believe women; the comment was not found to be proven. But I believe the women he said it to. I believe women. I have not been believed.

Maybe those troops need to be redirected in to our own parliamentary and diplomatic protection unit. Maybe the troops should round up the list of nicknames for police officers. Maybe the troops would have believed a 9 year old child who reported her rape, only for it to go un-investigated and Cliff Mitchell to continue to abuse her, whilst now being protected by a warrant card. He was hired after the so called “watershed moment” of Sarah’s murder.

But the troops and the fire departments have the same issues of abusing positions of trust for sexual gain and abuse. Every industry does. And it doesn’t benefit them to fix it which is why the MPs I listed above are so crucial. And why I am so grateful to them despite the cost and strain on them individually and their families.

To end with some hope. I have had the absolute privilege to watch Katrin Hohl and Betsy Stanko, my personal heroes in this fight, do the long and slow work to protect women and make our future safer.  To make rape prosecutions able to end in convictions. Their work has huge implications and should be recognised as such. The care and effort that has gone into the safeguarding for women that trust them with their stories is incredible. They have also restored and supported me in such generous and effective ways. And taught me there are multiple ways to effect change, not just the most obvious route. And have told me when to pass the baton and rest.

A must read on Betsy and Katrin’s work and a road map to progress.

And their work on the biggest study of its kind about women’s experience when reporting their sexual assaults to police.

So in honour of our new government and MPs that actually demonstrate that women’s safety is a priority, I am going to use what power and voice I have developed to impact policy and change here and save my breath when it comes to Trump.  He doesn’t get to remove my power here, if anything he compels me to fight harder in the UK.  And keep my powder dry, my efforts local and my womb my own, by choice.