Sarah Everard vigil organisers seek court ruling after police ban

Organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard are seeking an urgent order from the High Court after the group said it had been told by police the gathering would be “unlawful”.

Reclaim These Streets said there had been an “about-face” by the Metropolitan Police after it reversed a decision on allowing the vigil to go ahead at Clapham Common bandstand in south London on Saturday evening amid the coronavirus lockdown.

The group said it hoped for a hearing to “confirm the police’s understanding of the law is wrong” on Friday.

Anna Birley, one of the organisers, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that organisation for the vigil began on Wednesday and the group had “proactively” contacted Lambeth Council and the Metropolitan Police.

“Initially, we had feedback that they were looking at ways to navigate this, that they would be looking at how they could proportionately and appropriately provide community policing to the event,” she said.

“And we were in conversation about how we could do that safely so that people could express their anger and their grief without putting themselves or others at risk.

“We then had an about-face mid-afternoon yesterday.

“We were being put under increasing pressure that, individually, we would be at risk for doing so, but as would everybody who attended and all the women across the country potentially who have been organising sister vigils in their own areas.”

Reclaim These Streets said by “forcing us to cancel” the vigil, the police would be “silencing thousands of women like us who want to honour Sarah’s memory and stand up for our right to feel safe on our streets”.

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Scotland Yard said it “understands the public’s strength of feeling” for the vigil and that the Met remains in discussions with the event organisers “in light of current Covid regulations”.

Protests were exempt from bans on gathering under Covid-19 laws earlier in the pandemic, but the exemption was removed for the current national lockdown in England.

Police can break up illegal gatherings and issue fines of £10,000 to someone holding a gathering of more than 30 people.

However, protests are not explicitly banned under the law and human rights groups argue that police still have a duty to facilitate demonstrations that abide by public health guidance.

A crowdfunding campaign to cover Reclaim These Streets’ legal costs met its £30,000 target within an hour of its launch on Thursday night. Funding stood at more than £37,000 on Friday morning.

Ms Birley said the safety of the vigil had been a “priority from the get-go”, adding: “It would be ironic to organise a vigil to think about women’s safety in public spaces without also thinking about the health and safety aspects.”

She said the location of Clapham Common was in part chosen because it is a “wide-open space”, and organisers had emphasised wearing masks and the importance of social distancing.

“We had QR codes so that people could do track and trace, and just really trying to work out how we can do this in a really safe way,” Ms Birley said.

The Clapham Common vigil was organised after the suspected kidnap and murder of Ms Everard triggered anger over the safety of women on the UK’s streets.

Sister events are planned to take place in other cities and towns, including Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds and Liverpool.