Sarah Everard vigil organisers win court challenge against police
The Metropolitan Police breached the rights of organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard with its handling of the planned event, High Court judges have ruled.
Reclaim These Streets (RTS) proposed a socially-distanced vigil for the 33-year-old, who was murdered by former Met officer Wayne Couzens, near to where she went missing in Clapham, south London, in March last year.
The four women who founded RTS and planned the vigil brought a legal challenge against the force over its handling of the event, which was also intended to be a protest about violence against women.
They withdrew from organising the vigil after being told by the force they would face fines of £10,000 each and possible prosecution if the event went ahead, and a spontaneous vigil and protest took place instead.
Jessica Leigh, Anna Birley, Henna Shah and Jamie Klingler argued that decisions made by the force in advance of theplannedvigilamountedtoa breach of their human rights to freedom of speech and assembly, and said the force did not assess the potential risk to public health.
In a ruling yesterday, two senior judges upheld their claim, finding that the Met’s decisions in the run-up to the event were “not in accordance with the law”. In a summary of the ruling, Lord Justice Warby said: “The relevant decisions of the [Met] were to make statements at meetings, in letters, and in a press statement, to the effect that the Covid-19 regulations in force at the time meant that holding the vigil would be unlawful.
“Those statements interfered with the claimants’ rights because each had a ‘chilling effect’ and made at least some causal contribution to the decision to cancel the vigil.
“Noneofthe[force’s]decisions was in accordance with the law; the evidence showed that the [force] failed to perform its legal duty to consider whether the claimants might have a reasonable excuse for holding thegathering,ortoconductthe fact-specific proportionality assessment required in order to perform that duty.”
The Met had defended the claim brought by RTS, arguing there was no exception for protestinthecoronavirusrules at the time, and that it had “no obligation” to assess the public health risk.
The policing of the spontaneous vigil that took place drew criticismfromacrossthepoliticalspectrumafterwomenwere handcuffed on the ground and led away by officers.
The vigil organisers’ solicitor Theodora Middleton said: “Today’s judgment is a victory for women. Last March, women’s voices were silenced. Today’s judgment conclusively shows that the police were wrong to silence us.
“The decisions and actions by the Met Police in the run-up to the planned vigil for Sarah Everardlastyearwereunlawful and the judgment sets a powerfulprecedentforprotestrights.”
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe said:“the Met worked very hard in challenging circumstances to interpret and apply the regulations lawfully and proportionately, despite numerous changes during the pandemic.”
She said the force will consider whether to appeal, saying the decision could have wider implications for other protests.