No need to cower, but girls must be careful
WHEN I was a student at the University of Glasgow, I regularly walked along Kelvin Way – the long, grand road that bisects the city’s Kelvingrove Park.
It is a beautiful street lined with oak trees and old fashioned street lamps, surrounded by parkland and the River Kelvin. During the day it teems with life, but after nightfall it becomes a different place, seedy and unsafe, a street not to walk alone.
Not that this deterred me. If I wanted to walk home me at 2am I would. I was 188 and thought I was invincible.
Somewhere on Kelvin Way, just after 1am on April 12 this year, 21year- old Alexander Pacteau murdered nursing student Karen Buckley, pictured, by hitting her 12 or 13 times with a spanner. Then he calmly drove her body back to his flat, covered it in a sheet, and went to sleep.
Like so many young female male students in Glasgow for generations before her, 23-year-old Karen’s night started in the city’s West End with a gaggle of friends. They ended up at the Sanctuary nightclub on Dumbarton Road, not far from Kelvin Way. When Karen walked outside the club she was approached by Pacteau who, police believe, offered her a lift home. She was dead 20 minutes later.
We will probably never know why Karen got in to Pacteau’s car. What we do know is that young women sometimes do silly things. Most of us are lucky enough to make our mistakes privately, and without consequence. We do something foolish, we get away with it, and we move on with our lives.
When I walked along Kelvin Way alone late at night and on my own, I was taking a foolish risk. I have no defence, other than that I was young and stupid. And very, very lucky that I never reaped the consequences.
Poor Karen did not get the chance to make a silly, inconsequential mistake. Instead, she paid a horrific price for what was likely a snap decision. My heart breaksb for her, and for her devastated family who s spoke so movingly this week outside the High Court after Pacteau’s guilty plea, of the bright, funny, alwayssmiling daughter they were d devoted to.
None of this is Karen’s fault. Young women sh should have the rig right to walk our stre streets without fear of being murdered in cold blood. Pacteau was a predator, a truly evil and twisted individual whow hunted down the talented young student like prey. She probably never stood a chance.
I don’t think the answer to any of this is that we can tell our young women to stay off the streets. This is not about blaming the victim, or allowing the bad guys to win. But we can tell women to be safe, to carry rape alarms, to always tell their friends where they are going, and most of all to be careful. To think twice about what they’re doing, to weigh up the pros and cons, and not to walk home alone through dark, dangerous streets – even when they think they are invincible.