Treat violence against women on par with terrorism, says Met

VIOLENCE against women and girls must be treated as a national security threat, the Met Commissioner has said.

Speaking in the wake of a report into the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Scotland Yard officer, Sir Mark Rowley warned there were hundreds of thousands of sex abusers and paedophiles at large and that tackling them would require more resources.

Addressing a meeting of the London Policing Board, Sir Mark said: “The aim nationally should be to treat it as a national security threat like we treat organised crime, like we treat terrorism. When you look at the amount of harm that predatory men create in communities and to individuals, that’s what it deserves.”

Describing the scale of the problem, he said that in London 34,000 men had sex allegations made against them in one year, while figures from the annual Crime Survey for England and Wales suggested 800,000 women annually were victims of sexual assault.

Last year, the National Crime Agency estimated that 750,000 men posed a sexual threat to children. Sir Mark said: “You start to add these numbers together. There are a lot of men who are a threat to women and children.

“And we’re trying to build the capabilities to both react better to the crimes that are reported, and to proactively in public spaces or with dangerous offenders protect women and children.” He told the Policing Board his force was making progress but added: “We’re going to need the support of future governments to really build the scale of resource to deal with this problem across the country that is the same kind of resource that you have proportionately to deal with, say, terrorism and organised crime.”

His comments came after the family and friends of Everard marked the third anniversary since her abduction, rape and murder by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens.

Last week, a report by Lady Elish Angiolini highlighted a series of missed opportunities by the Met and other

forces to identify Couzens’s pattern of offending and stop him serving as a police officer.

Issuing a fresh apology to Miss Everard’s family, Sir Mark said: “There is nothing we can say to the family of Sarah Everard and those who loved her to say how deeply, deeply sorry we are.”

Two years ago, Priti Patel, who was home secretary at the time, announced that tackling violence against women and girls would be added to the strategic policing requirement (SPR), meaning forces would have to treat it as a national priority alongside terrorism, serious and organised crime, and child sexual abuse.

Addressing the meeting, which was attended by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Sir Mark also hit out at criticism of his force’s handling of pro-palestinian protests, saying it had resulted in the Met being simultaneously labelled “woke” and “fascist”.

Last week, Rishi Sunak urged police to take a tougher stance on activists as he said protests must not be “hijacked” by extremists to promote hatred or anti-semitism.

Speaking in a rare address from the steps of Downing Street, he said: “This week I have met with senior police officers and made clear it is the public’s expectation that they will not merely manage these protests, but police them.

“And I say this to the police, we will back you when you take action.”

Last year Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, accused Scotland Yard of “double standards”, suggesting they treated pro-palestinian protesters more leniently than far-right demonstrators.

But Sir Mark Rowley insisted his officers were “policing the law as it is, not as others would wish it to be” and said hundreds of people had been arrested and prosecuted including some for terror offences.

He said: “In this context of polarised public debate I do think sometimes we are the first people who are able to be labelled simultaneously woke and fascists and that comes across in some of the criticism. I fully understand the strength of feeling but to suggest that we are not - where the law permits as the law allows - policing robustly, is not accurate.” He said there had been more than 360 arrests in total, with 90 from the far Right.

Sir Mark said: “We have to police the law as it is not as others would wish it to be: the threshold for banning marches is very, very high and is based solely on an unmanageable threat of violence and we are already imposing severe conditions on timings, locations and routes of marches including being very sensitive to religious premises and conditioning protesters to avoid disruption to services and others.”

Last night, Mrs Braverman urged Mr Sunak to go further and introduce emergency laws allowing ministers to restrict marches, telling GB News a “step change in the police response” was needed. “They need to be enforcing the law,” she said. “They need to be arresting people who are using threatening or abusive language. We need to be holding the police to account in a better way.”