A cynical hijacking of tragedy
JMY DAUGHTER is the same age as Sarah Everard. Every time that lovely open face appears on the television my heart simultaneously weeps for her parents, and thuds with terror. What an incredibly foul crime her murder was; this happy, popular young woman snatched from a street which in normal times would have been busy and safe.
So what to make of all the sound and fury since her body was found and a policeman was charged with her murder? The fact that the alleged killer is a serving officer has escalated the turmoil about what would always have been shocking news.
It has, perhaps subconsciously, stoked fears that all women are always unsafe. If that is the case then how could any woman ever trust any man again?
The highly strung emotions which always follow news of lethal violence towards someone like us, someone like our daughter, our sister, our friend, become sensationally inflamed. And when we see the disturbing scenes at Clapham Common, with police manhandling young women gathered to honour Sarah, our anger is intolerable.
And the police were wrongly advised; they should not have interfered, but Covid regulations meant the vigil, however peaceful, was banned. Police were in a cleft stick.
And so, full of anger, we widen the discussion from violence towards women to the kind of everyday verbal male harassment, sometimes sexual, sometimes abusive, which every woman encounters in her lifetime.
I doubt there’s a woman in the land who hasn’t been followed, flashed at, or worse.We all hate it; but sadly it’s a fact of life.
All we can do is call out misogyny and bring up our sons to respect women.
Helena Edwards, a close university friend of Sarah, boycotted the vigil, saying: “My friend’s tragic death has been hijacked... Sarah was a victim of one of the most horrific crimes imaginable. She was extremely unlucky – that’s all there is to it. Her abduction and murder is not... a symptom of a sexist, dangerous society.”
Rational words in a panicking world. I agree with her.
RCOUNTDOWN star Rachel Riley says she’s been learning Russian so she can speak to her husband’s mother (Rachel is married to Siberian-born former Strictly dancer Pasha Kovalev; his mum speaks no English). Russian phrases Rachel’s learned so far? “I opened the window with a crowbar” was one of the first, apparently. I’m appearing on the show next week. I must get her to teach it to me. You never know when it might come in useful.