One woman's murder.

[Workingman]

The media are all over the murder of Sarah Everard. Baroness Jenny Jones of Moulescoomb called for a 6pm curfew on men, and Jess Phillips read out a list of murdered women in parliament. Fine.

There is a conversation to be had about murders, no doubt about that, but Sarah Everard was murdered, randomly, by a stranger and 'stranger murder' is rare. Most murders are carried out by perpetrators known to the victim - usually family, friends or acquaintances.

We need to be careful that we do not got OTT with this. Sarah was largely unknown outside of her circle of friends, anonymous, so please do not turn her into a 'celebrity' to force an agenda. Murders happen, always have and always will; they are the facts.

Let us not make out that England, the UK, Britain, is some evil place and that all men (or women) need to be locked up after the sun sets.

Imo, It would be far better if we punished the perpetrators severely in order to attempt to deter others, but the woke amongst us will not allow that.

Let the conversation begin....

[medsec222]

Totally agree Frank. Most men are decent fathers, husbands, and sons. There will always be evil people within our society, both men and women, so let us not demonise half of our society. Regarding the comment made by Baroness Jones that all men should be curfewed and home by 6 p.m., it is absurd and fanciful and does not take the debate forward.

[cromwell]

Yes, a curfew of men is unworkable and daft.
But in an ideal world a woman should be able to go for a walk after dark without doing it fearfully. I don't think it's an unreasonable aim.
I don't know what the answer is though. Harsher punishment for violence against women might be a start. Also maybe try and educate teenagers in schools about what is acceptable behaviour (though they might be doing this already).

[Workingman]

What the Baroness and Jess Phillips have done is open the debate, and that is not a bad thing. But it is not a man or woman thing, it is a societal one.

We, in Leeds and the North, lived through this during the Ripper times and it was destructive. No man was a safe companion and none should ever be trusted, so went the mantra - it lingers to this day.

Murders happen, even in the safest of places, but that should not allow the rest of us to take out our angst and our anger on the wider community.

Sarah Everard was (allegedly) murdered by one unhinged individual - we are not that individual - deal with him and his ilk.

[miasmum]

See I come at this from a different angle. As a woman I accept I am at risk if I chose to walk over a park or a common in the dark. I am at risk if I choose walk alone in the dark full stop. If I got steaming drunk and was refused entry into a club and then got picked up and murdered by some deranged individual that was a risk I took. The world is out there, and its not always a nice one. Women have been murdered since Jack the Ripper and before.

Take responsibility for yourself and accept its a tough world and you need to be savvy and sensible. If I had a teenage daughter that would be the one thing I would want her learn. Stop bleating on about it being unfair, it was, it is and it always will be but men get murdered too, just in case anyone has forgotten that.

Edited to add, I am not for one minute saying Sarah Everard was in any way responsible for what happened to her. She didn't get attacked walking across the common, and the fact she was approached by a serving police officer makes this almost impossible to prevent. She would have trusted him.

Which just proves that you can put a curfew in place, but 'good honest' serving Officers of the law will still be out there and they won't be curfewed

[Suff]

- deal with him and his ilk.

That's the one for me.

Now, personally, we differ on "Deal With". I'm far more dark ages than new age for murderers.

[Workingman]

Quite, Shell.

We need to be very careful that we do not build a culture and narrative that all women are vulnerable and that all men are a potential threat. It would not be healthy for society to do so.

Jess Phillips had a list of 118 murdered women, but that's not the story.

Statistically about 64% of them (76) were murdered by men (and women) they knew. A large number of those were in relationships gone wrong, and their killers had never killed before nor will they kill again.

The women randomly murdered numbered 42 - less than one per week in a population of approximately 33 million women. It could be said that 42 is 42 too many, but we really do need to get the numbers in perspective. And we need to stop the media and politically driven fear.

[TheOstrich]

...... I accept I am at risk if I chose to walk over a park or a common in the dark. I am at risk if I choose walk alone in the dark full stop. If I got steaming drunk and was refused entry into a club and then got picked up and murdered by some deranged individual that was a risk I took. The world is out there, and its not always a nice one.
...... Take responsibility for yourself and accept its a tough world and you need to be savvy and sensible.

I couldn't agree more. Everyone, regardless of sex, has to weigh up the risk.

If you can live with it (in my case, for example, crossing my fingers and parking the car on the crime-ridden Castle Vale Estate while I watched an evening football game, or waiting 15 minutes for a bus outside the Square Peg (Wetherspoons) in Corporation Street, Birmingham of a Saturday evening, keeping on the move to dodge the crazies that frequent that area) that's my decision and that's fine. If you can't live with it (in my case, travelling through the urban ganglands of Handsworth, Aston or Erdington outside of daylight hours), then don't do it.

It's merely simple common sense, and we need to exercise it ourselves. Everyone will have their own criteria for what's acceptable to them and what's not. We're all intelligent enough, I hope, to weigh up those risks.

Regarding Sarah Everard, I suspect there is much, much more to come out over this case, not least how the police were so quick to identify and arrest the suspect.

[Workingman]

The media has now rushed out articles on the many secret ways (for women) to get help....

There are secret hand signals, secret ways to phone the emergency services without using a keypad, and the secret of who and when to ask for Angela. They are all beautifully presented with graphics, minute details for different phones, pictures of posters - the job lot.

Unfortunately now that all these "secrets" are out all us men who are attacking all the women day and night, every day, now know what's going on and can move to our next victim!

I wonder what the media would do to start a real panic?

Ossie, I also wondered why this case got so much attention right from the off; and how quickly it unfolded when so many others get so little coverage after the first mention. Something does not quite fit.

ETA It has just come up that Met Police officer Wayne Couzens has been charged with the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard. He had been investigated for indecent exposure on Feb 28 in the same area, five days before Sarah's death.

[miasmum]

I was going to say that WM when you mentioned how quickly they moved in. Yes because he was already on their radar Two colleagues under investigation into their handling of the indecent exposure allegations