I WAS ASSAULTED — BUT I REFUSE TO BE COWED BY FEAR

THE ‘incident’, as it was referred to in my police report, happened on a hot summer’s night in 2019. It should have changed my attitude towards my personal safety and, indeed, that of my 24-year-old daughter — but I wouldn’t let that happen.

I was walking home from a friend’s house, a mile-long stroll along a busy road in North London, at about 11pm when I became aware of someone following me.

I slowed down, he slowed down. I sped up, he sped up. So I ducked inside a restaurant. When I emerged ten minutes later, he’d waited for me. In blind terror, I tried to sprint away — me, a middle-aged woman, a little bit tipsy, wearing strappy sandals, trying to outrun a 6 ft tall young man in trainers.

Obviously, he caught me. What happened next was truly bizarre: he just grinned and grabbed my bum, then ran off.

I have never been so scared in my life. To the police’s credit, they took it very seriously. I attended an identity parade where I failed to pick out my attacker, but they got him anyway: a local ‘character’ who had learning difficulties and was targeting women. My family and friends begged me to be more careful, not to walk alone at night, but angrily I refused. Why should I? I will not moderate what I see as perfectly reasonable behaviour in response to the unreasonable, and extremely rare, habits of others. Would I walk home along a country road, blind drunk, miles from anywhere? No, because that would increase my chances of running into danger, most likely from a speeding car.

But strolling home on a warm summer’s evening in a busy area is a privilege I am not prepared to forsake over a threat which I see as minimal. I was simply unlucky.

Women have fought too hard, for too long, for freedom to relinquish it that easily.