Male violence and harassment of women

[Fishnut]

Have we had this utter f.cking dickhead yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-58762029

"So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that," he said.

"Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process".

Holy f.ck

[jimbob]

Another personal story

https://twitter.com/JujuliaGrace/status ... 41889?s=20

[discovolante]

Have we had this utter f.cking dickhead yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-58762029

"So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that," he said.

"Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process".

What an absolute c.nt.

Maybe the Tories could commit to ensuring children are educated and there are broad public information campaigns on this stuff then rather than leaving it to charities and campaigning organisations.

[bagpuss]

Have we had this utter f.cking dickhead yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-58762029

"So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that," he said.

"Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process".

Oh FFS, what is wrong with some people?

Quite aside from the utter crassness of saying such a thing*, how would learning the legal process have helped her. From the gov.uk website

To arrest you the police need reasonable grounds to suspect you’re involved in a crime for which your arrest is necessary.

The police have powers to arrest you anywhere and at any time, including on the street, at home or at work.

My bold

If you’re arrested the police must:

• identify themselves as the police
• tell you that you’re being arrested
• tell you what crime they think you’ve committed
• explain why it’s necessary to arrest you
• explain to you that you’re not free to leave

and then

If you try to escape or become violent, the police can use ‘reasonable force’, for example holding you down so you cannot run off.

You can also be handcuffed.

The police have powers to search you when you’re arrested.

So, given all that, if someone came up to a woman, identified themselves as the police (including showing entirely valid warrant card), told her she was being arrested and for what crime and that they had to arrest you and you weren't free to leave, what is she supposed to do? Because it says right there that if you try to escape, they can use reasonable force and hold you down. So quite evidently, the right and safest thing for anyone to do is to go with the police officer and try to sort things out at the police station.

We know that the police get it wrong (on extremely rare occasions, of course, but it has happened once or twice ) so an innocent person would assume that a mistake has been made but that that will get sorted out later and resisting arrest is a bad idea. A savvy person who knows their rights and what powers the police have, will know that even if you are completely innocent of what you are being arrested for, resisting arrest is still an offence and you could end up being charged with that if you don't submit to the arrest and go with the police officer(s).

So what, exactly, dear Philip Allott, should Sarah Everard have done differently if she had taken the trouble to educate herself on what police ought to be doing (because we can't trust them to get it right themselves)?






*I mean, just imagine how Sarah Everard's family will feel, reading that?

[purplehaze]

I've not seen any mention of fearing he had firearms in his house, either in relation to the delay in his arrest or otherwise. This article from soon after his arrest says,

On Tuesday night, shortly after returning home from a shift in London, Couzens, 49, who who protected diplomats and VIPs, was arrested on suspicion of kidnap and murder, and a separate allegation of indecent exposure.

Neighbours claim police had the home of the armed officer, who worked in the Westminster-based Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, under surveillance in the hours before the arrest...

A witness said she saw two men in a Land Rover watching the house at about 5pm on Tuesday before they went to the door two hours later.

Between 15 and 20 more officers were hidden around the corner as the house was stormed, the neighbour added.

It is understood detectives have found no link between the suspect and Ms Everard.

So, even if it wasn't a mate in the Met who alerted him, it seems possible that the neighbours were talking about what was going on. If he or his wife were on Next Door or similar then I can very easily imagine him getting alerted to the sh.t being about to hit the fan.

I really hope that any inquiry into the series of failings that allowed Couzens to be put in a position where he could kidnap a member of the public under the guise of an arrest, rape and murder them, also investigates why police took so long to enter his property after having arrived at it. It's one thing to be back at the police station wondering whether or not to raid a place, entirely another to dither about round the corner for 2 hours in view of the neighbours because you don't like arresting one of your own.

Knowing that he took his children and wife out for the day close to the remains of Sarah Everard, I can but only suppose that the police wanted to spare his family the horror of them entering the house to arrest him and were therefore waiting for him to come out. But of course he didn't and the arrest was made in the family lounge.

[purplehaze]

Police are now looking into past cold cases.

No surprise at all in them doing this, but why has it taken so long?

[JQH]

Have we had this utter f.cking dickhead yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-58762029
"So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that," he said.

"Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process".

Jesus f.cking Christ on a crutch.

Takes victim blaming to a whole new level.

Also, as anyone who has ever been on a demo knows, if you argue with arresting officers they beat you up and add "resisting arrest" to the list of charges.

[purplehaze]

There's no way I would desist arrest. I have a Northern Irish accent anyway.

I would be as compliant as Sarah Everard was.

[Stephanie]

They are desperate to try and twist this to be that it wasn't a legitimate arrest, or that he is just like the one bad man in the police - rather than interrogating the power that they have, and the absolute obvious truth of it all, which that he was a current police officer, with legitimate ID, and that he was arresting for her something plausible. And even, if in this instance, Sarah Everard had been "streetwise" (ugh) enough to question whether it was a strictly necessary arrest he was a violent man who wanted to rape and kill her. There is nothing she could have done to stop that.

[Fishnut]

In a way it's quite telling. They know there's nothing Sarah, or any of us, can do to protect ourselves from police officers who abuse their powers. They also know there's thing they can do under their current systems to prevent officers from abusing their powers, or to find and remove people like Couzens from their employment or prevent others like him from joining. They are basically admitting the system is broken, they just haven't realised it.

[Stephanie]

It's because they like the power, and they very much want to retain it

[Fishnut]

Yep

[jimbob]

https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/sta ... 7346984960

davidallengreen
@davidallengreen
Remember the Lancashire police officer recorded on cameras saying "I will make something up...who are they going to believe, me or you?" in 2020 ?

All he eventually got was a written warning:
'Make something up' threat Lancashire Police officer given warning
A policeman accepted he breached standards when confronting a group of males, a force says.
bbc.co.uk
3:24 PM · Oct 1, 2021·TweetDeck

Which is symptomatic again of a failure of accountability.

[jimbob]

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/10/why ... the-point/

Why the advice of the Metropolitan Police that those concerned by wrongful arrest ‘wave down a bus’ is besides the point

[Stephanie]

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/10/why ... the-point/

Why the advice of the Metropolitan Police that those concerned by wrongful arrest ‘wave down a bus’ is besides the point

Yeah, Fishnut shared that one earlier with a post - here viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2269&start=500#p97482

[mediocrity511]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... -dna-shows

Just one bad apple...

[mediocrity511]

Have we had this utter f.cking dickhead yet?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-58762029

"So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can't be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that," he said.

"Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process".

Surely if they resist arrest then it would be breach of the peace? Or if she acted too crazy, then section 136 of the mental health act could be used. Who would bystanders believe? The emotional woman trying to resist the officer, or the man claiming he needs to detain her for her own safety?

[purplehaze]

We have no idea how the conversation went beforehand that lead to Sarah being arrested and handcuffed.

She could well have resisted and was then handcuffed.

We will never know.

And yes men will dickhead when it comes to blaming women for everything.

[Stephanie]

We have no idea how the conversation went beforehand that lead to Sarah being arrested and handcuffed.

She could well have resisted and was then handcuffed.

We will never know.

And yes men will dickhead when it comes to blaming women for everything.

There were reports of both CCTV footage and witnesses who saw her being arrested - we can't know the conversation, but she didn't appear to be resisting. She was described in court as being "compliant, with her head down and did not appear to be arguing".

https://news.sky.com/story/wayne-couzen ... s-12420944

[Imrael]

I heard a soundbite from Jess Philips on the radio on the way home, saying that with all she knew and campaign/legislative experience she would still have got in the car. As would I (elderly male) and, I think, nearly anyone else except an actual violent criminal.

[purplehaze]

Who gave the description of her being compliant? The trustworthy police?

I see a person who has head down, arms out, albeit briefly with no indication of what happened before. There was no CCTV of her being arrested, only a dash cam recording. Sarah was abducted on a busy main road, near traffic lights.

Going by in your car at likely 30mph, albeit slowing down for the traffic lights, doesn't mean anything, except you saw what was going on from the comfort of your car and happened to have a dash cam, and quickly got out your mobile to record it.

Oh and I would have got into the car too. I would have felt humiliated being arrested on a main road, in front of traffic.

[Imrael]

French police officer guilty of crimes

No reason to think police wrongdoing is unique to the UK of course, but I thought it was an interesting, if grim, coincidence to see this story,

[Stephanie]

Who gave the description of her being compliant? The trustworthy police?

I see a person who has head down, arms out, albeit briefly with no indication of what happened before. There was no CCTV of her being arrested, only a dash cam recording. Sarah was abducted on a busy main road, near traffic lights.

Going by in your car at likely 30mph, albeit slowing down for the traffic lights, doesn't mean anything, except you saw what was going on from the comfort of your car and happened to have a dash cam, and quickly got out your mobile to record it.

Oh and I would have got into the car too. I would have felt humiliated being arrested on a main road, in front of traffic.

The article says:

A witness saw Couzens, an off-duty Met Police constable, cuff and arrest Ms Everard, and images of them standing together were caught on security cameras on two buses, a refuse lorry and a marked police car.

ETA: the witness was another woman.

[Fishnut]

The Guardian has a report on indecent exposure figures for the UK. They have compiled figures from the Ministry of Justice, the ONS and the Crime Survey for England and Wales, and found the following:
- 113,000 women were subjected to indecent exposure last year (around 1 in 10 women in the country)
- 10,775 cases of “exposure and voyeurism” were reported to police in the year to March 2020 (around 10% of cases)
- 594 cases made it to court (5.5% of cases reported)
- 435 cases were given guilty verdicts (73% of cases that made it to court)

They quote victims' commissioner Vera Baird as saying,

“It really seems to be an epidemic,” Baird said. “I hardly know a woman who hasn’t been flashed. It clearly is endemic and it needs to be taken seriously, particularly because I think that attitude that it discloses is quite risky.”

What struck me is how these are actually better than the figures for rape.
- 294,280 women were raped or assaulted by penetration (I can't find precise figures but the ONS reports that fewer than 1 in 5 women report their rape or assault by penetration to the police (ONS figures) so I've calculated an estimate from the reported cases, and is still better than the 1 in 10 for indecent exposure
- 58,856 cases of rape were reported to police in the year to March 2020 (according to the BBC)
- 2,102 cases made it to court (around 3.6% of cases reported) (according to the BBC)
- I can't actually find the number of convictions. The ONS has lots of info on why a precise figure is hard to come by.

So we're in a weird position of the police clearly not caring about indecent exposure but somehow still doing a better job of getting convictions on the cases that are reported to them than they do for rapes, despite rape being the more serious crime.

[Cardinal Fang]

There's an app you can get called Legal Lifeline. It was designed by a black barrister who was sick of getting stopped and searched all the time as a way for people to record their stop and search interactions (and also has a lawyer from their chamber on contact). The footage is uploaded to a cloud server so the police can't just delete it

You activate it just by pressing a button.

Okay yes it's for stop and searches, but I can see it being downloaded a lot more by women in case they're stopped by the police and is apprehensive at the hought - getting the interaction on video and the officer knowing it's on video that will be reviewed by a third party they can't get to may discourage people from being too intrusive

CF