Women feel let down over male violence and have to be hypervigilant, say victims

Victims of violence against women and girls have said they feel let down by authorities and have to constantly be “hypervigilant” about men in their vicinity.

The statements from two women who were victims of sexual harassment and assault in public at transport hubs come after a leading police chief warned violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a “national emergency” – as a new report revealed nearly 3,000 crimes are recorded every day.

Grace Warden, 20, who lives in Camden, north London, took the Overground service from Kentish Town West to West Hampstead at about 10.30am on May 3 and was travelling to a self-defence class when a man approached her on the train, before shouting expletives at her and following her through the train.

Ms Warden, who has chosen to reveal her identity, said the man got on the train after her and “wouldn’t stop staring” at her, which prompted her to text her mother.

“If it’s just staring, it’s fine, I can deal with that. Just as I was halfway through writing a second text, he sat next to me and got really up in my face,” she told the PA news agency.

“I stood up, shouted, walked away and got upset. He kept following me down the train and he was shouting at me calling me a ‘bitch’.”

Ms Warden said she had a panic attack and reported the incident to the British Transport Police (BTP), but she felt the authorities “didn’t care” and described their handling of her case as “just a performance”.

After exchanging multiple emails with them, on May 31 they said her case had been closed.

“It just feels like the (British Transport Police) waited a really long time to get back to me – I would email back and forth a little bit and then it would just go silent when I wanted something to happen,” she said.

“I was so disappointed. I was really upset.”

Ms Warden’s mother, Jane Gray, 54, has since escalated Ms Warden’s incident to Tulip Siddiq MP for Hampstead and Kilburn and is waiting for a caseworker to help deal with her case after the BTP said it could not find CCTV footage.

She added: “All women have had things happen to them – when I was a young woman, things happened to me, but it feels like it’s epidemic level now, much more than when I was young.”

A 52-year-old woman from West Ealing in London said she agrees that violence against women is a national emergency, after a man attacked her in “broad daylight” near her local railway station in August 2023.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told PA that at about 1pm she saw a man walking towards her who was “clearly drunk and angry”, prompting her to move out of his way, which “seemed to anger him”.

“He then confronted me,” she said.

“He moved right up so his body was up against mine and raised his fist to me, he said that he hated ‘bitches’ and he kept asking me why I’d moved out of his way.

“He shoved me up against a wall and grabbed my crotch saying that he could do anything he wanted to me and I couldn’t do anything about it.

“I knew that one punch from that man could have killed me and I just wanted it to be over.”

Some builders shouted at the man and began filming him, so the attacker walked on and waited on the station platform, while the woman told station staff about the incident.

“The attacker saw that I was talking to staff and came to the concourse, yelled something about how sick he was about ‘bitches causing him problems’ and left,” she said.

The woman felt she could have been “more supported by the station staff even though they did help”, believing that because she “didn’t push for anything else to happen, they probably felt like it was over”.

“They could have suggested showing the CCTV to police perhaps,” she said.

Ultimately, she did not report the incident to police as she “did not feel like the police would be helpful” and wanted to “leave this incident behind”.

The woman said she had been “upset” by the incident and is “always scared” when she goes to the railway station, “no matter what time of day”.

“My hypervigilance on monitoring the men who are in my vicinity is constant,” she said.

She added: “I agree that violence against women and girls is a national emergency. I am a tutor for higher education and several of my female students have reported being spiked and having to deal with male violence regularly.

“They take it as a fact of life which is heart-breaking.”

Responding to the women’s statements, the Metropolitan Police said: “Violence against women and girls is endemic, systemic and a threat to society on the same scale as terrorism.

“We’re overhauling the training given to officers across the country and we’re committed to drastically improving the experience of victims which is so often a barrier to reporting.”

PA has contacted British Transport Police and Tulip Siddiq MP for comment.