'Huge' issue of violence against women and girls in London
Violence against women and girls in London has increased over the last year and remains "endemic", the London Assembly has heard.New figures from the Metropolitan Police show reported sexual offences increased by 7.4% in the 12 months up to the end of January 2025, compared to the previous 12 months.Deputy assistant commissioner Alexis Boon told the committee that the problem was "huge", and said the solutions relied on societal changes, and said the Met "wasn't going to solve it". Susan Hall of the Police and Crime Committee said its meeting on Wednesday was "timely" following the sentencing of Kyle Clifford, who killed his ex-girlfriend, her sister and her mother in a crossbow attack.
'A view of masculinity'
The committee was hosting the second part of its current investigation into violence against women and girls (VAWG) in the capital.It heard evidence from the panel that their latest research showed "societal changes" and a "push back on (gender) equality". Jain Lemom, the head of tackling violence against women and girls at the Mayor's office for policing and crime (MOPAC), told the group that "boys are being pushed towards a view of masculinity" which was "a big worry". Ms Lemom said: "It is proliferating itself in society, but definitely in the online space."Jane Peck, the director of the Mayor's violence reduction unit agreed, and told the committee: "We've seen the influence of the Tate brothers and others when we've spoken to teachers and young people that we work with."That's really being felt when it comes to misogyny being directed towards young women."We're doing a lot in that online space to recognise that evil that is really helping to fuel a lot of the violence towards girls and young women."Will Balakrishnan, director of commissioning and partnerships at the Mayor's office for policing and crime, said the issue of violence towards women and girls was "endemic" in the capital. He cited a Girlguiding report from 2024 which said 95% of women aged 17-21 experience sexism, with nearly half feeling less safe as a result. The report said 77% of girls interviewed had experienced sexism online.
'Dearth of services'
Ms Lemom also told the committee there was a "dearth of services for young people experiencing forms of VAWG".Conservative assembly member Emma Best later responded and discussed her concerns over the closure of Cyber Helpline, a website run by a network of volunteers who help victims of cybercrime, digital fraud & online harm, including victims of VAWG in London.The assembly member said the support service was "vital" but faced being shut down imminently, due to Mayoral budget cuts."If we're losing officers in the Met, actually this is a service which is providing the work of police officers - these experts are providing additional expertise which really are vital," she said.Will Balakrishnan, the director of commissioning and partnerships at the Mayor's office for policing and crime responded to say that finances were currently "tricky" within the Mayor's office, and said that the cuts were part of other "efficiencies" being made, due to reduced government support.
Underreported violence
The Met's dep assistant commissioner, Alexis Boon said there was a need to "increase reporting"."Then we can tackle it more effectively and tackle the underlying causes," he said.Dep assistant commissioner Boon said the Met was "committed to tackling VAWG", but said the problem was "huge", and said that "fundamentally we need to change the way we treat women and girls as a society".He said the Met "wasn't going to solve it".Launched at the end of February, the findings of the VAWG investigation will feed into a new report with recommendations for improvements, and will be sent to the Mayor in April.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Telegraph
Sex offender fined £1.42 per indecent exposure
A sex offender who indecently exposed himself seven times has been handed a £10 fine – equivalent to just £1.42 per offence. Leon Clarke, 49, from Sutton, south London, also received a one-year community order after admitting indecently exposing himself with intent to cause alarm on seven occasions at train stations last year. His 'soft' sentence has sparked demands for police and courts to take a tougher approach, just days after The Telegraph revealed how thousands of sex offenders accused of indecent exposure were avoiding prosecution. It comes despite a crackdown pledge by police after the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. The proportion of indecent exposure offences resulting in a charge has halved since 2014-15 from one in five to just one in 10 (10.2 per cent) despite the number of reported crimes increasing by 160 per cent from 6,000 to 16,000 in the same period. A government-commissioned report found Wayne Couzens, who while serving as a Metropolitan Police officer murdered Sarah, could have been stopped if police had carried out a 'more thorough and committed' investigation into reports of his alleged indecent exposures.
Telegraph
13 hours ago
- Telegraph
Woke police chiefs whinge about underfunding when the real problem is their warped priorities
Readers of this newspaper will, throughout its long history, have been among the most ardent supporters of the police. We are traditionally pro law and order and take a dim view of rotters. It feels like that time is well and truly over. Monday's main Telegraph story, in advance of Wednesday's spending review by Rachel Reeves, which reported the concerns of senior officers that the police service is 'broken' and that underpaid and overworked personnel are leaving in droves because of funding cuts, attracted well over two thousand comments. They ranged from 'Diddums' to 'It's all your own stupid fault' with a good deal of colourful hostility in between. Honestly, you would struggle to find more derogatory remarks among the police's long-running foes at The Guardian. I noticed a similarly unsympathetic reaction a week ago when Met chief Sir Mark Rowley protested that police would have to choose which crimes to investigate if they didn't get more cash. As if the public, until now, had enjoyed a superb and rapid response to its burglaries, muggings, car, bike and phone thefts and our town centres positively thrummed with the purposeful presence of bobbies on the beat. 'Yes, Sir Mark, times must really be hard if you can only send six officers to arrest a retired police volunteer over a single tweet,' sneered one disgruntled taxpayer, perfectly capturing the mood of seething resentment. This collapse in trust is as precipitous as it is shocking. A widespread feeling has clearly taken hold that police are no longer doing the job we expect them to do, while interfering in things that are none of their damn business. The story of the London couple who were obliged last week to 'steal back' their own car after being told by police they did not know when they would be able to investigate thieves who took the Jaguar away on a flat-bed truck (but do call 101 if you find it, they were told) presents a snapshot of a frustrated public having to take the law into their own hands like a group of extremely polite, Emma Bridgewater-owning vigilantes. While many physical crimes go largely ignored, activist constabularies are doing a roaring trade in online offences. The preposterous yet sinister non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs), an Orwellian development of the College of Policing back in 2014, are frequently cited by police critics, as is the clampdown on free speech which is increasingly used to suppress popular discontent about things like the annual £4.7 billion bill to keep migrants in hotels and look after them. Those of us who, for some strange reason, think it's outrageous to spend the equivalent of every single penny in tax paid by the population of Manchester on accommodating tens of thousands of young males who broke into our country, used to be called 'racists'. But I see we have got a promotion, ladies and gentlemen. According to Prevent [a counter-terrorism programme], we are no longer racists, we are 'terrorists'! If we dare to express doubts about uncontrolled immigration and lack of integration, that is. That's the same Prevent which failed to prevent Axel Rudakubana slaughtering a dance class of little girls. And which, according to a 2023 report by Sir William Shawcross, concentrates too much on the largely mythical 'far Right' and not enough on Islamist terror. The College of Policing, I am reliably informed, encourages the same delusional appeasement of the group which poses by far the biggest threat to our national security. The criminalising of the white indigenous population, running in parallel to the woke appeasement of actual criminals, goes some way to explaining this new cordial loathing of the police, I think. Unbelievably, over 60 of our fellow citizens are slapped with an NCHI every single day for 'hateful' thoughts or conduct, many of them Monty Pythonesque in their absurdity. While senior police moan about Home Secretary Yvette Cooper not winning them a big enough payout in the spending review, there seem to be adequate funds to arrest and stigmatise law-abiding people. Only this week, I got a very worried email from a reader, Carolyn, who had complained to the police about a man who has been camping for several weeks in the park where her children play. The surrounding area stinks of urine and faeces and there are scattered remnants of drug use. When Carolyn and other mums walk past they have seen the man put his hand down his trousers to play with himself. The camper's appearance suggested to her that he was an African migrant. 'Using the term 'migrant' therefore did not strike me as anything other than a fair assumption,' says Carolyn. Uh-oh. Obviously, in the bonkers world of PC policing it will now be the anxious lady who complained about a threat to her community who is warned about causing trouble. 'It would seem that any offence caused to me is secondary to the offence of Hate Crime,' Carolyn says. Correct. An officer emailed Carolyn to say that police did not have the powers to remove the tent from the park. 'With regard to the hand down the trousers,' he said, 'Many people from all different backgrounds do this as a cultural/social trend and have done for a while, we often see members of the public doing this all around the city. We will speak with him about this though and advise him of the perception this could cause. I also suggest you reframe (sic) from referring to him as a 'migrant' and making comments about 'Are we paying him to take the proverbial out of us all?'… These can be seen as derogative (sic) terms and possibly a hate crime, especially when you probably know nothing about him.' If you seek a perfect illustration of why the police service is 'broken' and officers are deserting in droves, look no further than this jaw-dropping inversion of good and bad guys. Intimidating man from alien culture seemingly exposing himself in public and peeing, crapping and doing drugs where your kids play? Completely fine, culturally appropriate, nothing to be done about it. Englishwoman suggests the man is a 'migrant' who is taking advantage of our absurdly generous system? Oh dear, oh dear – your hurty words will be taken down, Madam, and used in evidence against you. Now, it's a fair bet that many of the public-spirited young people who aspire to become police officers still think it is Carolyn's side they should be on. A rookie error, I'm afraid. 'Recruits who join the force don't realise the police are so captured,' a senior source tells me. Officers now lack maturity and experience Police retention has been a problem for a long time. It's got much worse since the higher echelons subscribed to the anti-white Critical Race Theory and adopted a witless, Leftist ideology that would have been abhorrent to their predecessors. The number of resignations in the police started to exceed the number of retirements nationally around 2023. What this means in practice, as I was told after Essex Police came to my own door on Remembrance Sunday, is that many officers now lack the experience and maturity to make common-sense decisions and bin spurious allegations of racial hatred that flatter the identity-politics obsessions of their superiors. 'It's not uncommon for uniform shifts to be about 50 per cent probationers, and they might be running with an acting sergeant barely out of his probationary period (two years) in some cases,' warns my source. The Conservatives' decision, in 2020, to lower the application age to 17 (to join at 18) as part of their training means that a lot of young people without much life experience, who don't know what they're letting themselves in for, find policing a nasty shock to the system. Once they're in, probationers have to cope with complicated, badly-designed computer systems that add hours to already heavy workloads. They have very little time to conduct inquiries and pick up more and more stressful cases, meanwhile having to deal with the aggressive, ever-more-volubly-entitled, human-rights-aware dregs of our society. After all that, if you can still muster the courage to be a first-class constable who fiercely defends the public against wrong 'uns but swears a bit and leaves violent offenders feeling they weren't treated with enough dignity then expect your Pontius Pilate of a chief constable to throw you under the Hurty Feelings bus. That is exactly what happened to Lorne Castle, a Dorset officer who has twice won a national bravery award, including one for rescuing an elderly woman from a swollen river in 2023. A shameful betrayal The 46-year-old father of three was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct after bodycam footage captured him trying to arrest a teenager who was believed to have assaulted an elderly man (the boy, who later turned out to be carrying a knife). If you watch the footage, you can experience the frightening, febrile atmosphere in which Lorne Castle was trying to carry out his thankless task. He shouted and swore, telling the lad: 'Stop resisting or I'm going to smash you.' A veteran officer tells me that 'it looked like a good arrest'. But a panel found PC Castle did not treat the teenager with 'courtesy' or 'respect', and Dorset Police said 'his shouting, swearing, finger pointing, taking hold of the boy's face and throat and suggested use of leg restraints was not necessary, reasonable or proportionate'. The force said no further action was taken against the teenager – of course it wasn't! – but he was issued with an out of court disposal for possessing the knife. I ask you, why would anybody risk phone seizures, suspensions and months of stress over complaints that usually turn out to be baseless but which see them treated like criminals? While clueless top brass in their woke ivory towers put saving their career before protecting their officers. In my book, a man of the calibre of Lorne Castle is worth more to the people of this country than every chief constable put together. So let us hear no more whingeing about underfunding leading to reduced services and driving officers away. Blame a warped sense of priorities promoted by activist police chiefs, a shameful betrayal of the British bobby and the demonisation of ordinary people for expressing legitimate fears. If the police have lost the support of Telegraph readers, then they are lost indeed.
Daily Mirror
13 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
'Two buried guns' found during latest search for Madeleine McCann
Police reportedly found two guns in the search for Madeleine McCann last week. The firearms have now been sent back to Germany for analysis, along with fragments of bones and clothing which had already been reported, according to The Olive Press. The bones are said to be from animals, but some smaller fragments will be analysed. On Thursday, a team of German and Portuguese investigators wrapped up a three-day search along a 120-acre stretch of land in Lagos, Portugal, in their latest attempt to find new evidence against prime suspect Christian Brueckner. Initial reports suggested the operation - which took place 30 miles from where three-year-old Madeleine went missing in May 2007 - had failed to turn up any new leads. The team was seen congratuating and embracing each other and officers involved in the latest searches held a debrief before leaving the site, and there was a round of applause before a crate of German beer was removed from one of the tents in the designated base area. British officers have not been present at the latest searches, the Metropolitan Police said. Madeleine's parents have not commented during the 'active police investigation', staff at the Find Madeleine Campaign said. German authorities requested the search as part of their continued attempts to source evidence to implicate prime suspect Christian Brueckner, who is in prison for raping a 72-year-old woman in Praia da Luz in 2005. He is due to be released from jail in September if no further charges are brought. In October last year, Brueckner was cleared by a German court of unrelated sexual offences, alleged to have taken place in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. In 2023, investigators carried out searches near the Barragem do Arade reservoir, about 30 miles from Praia da Luz. Brueckner spent time in the area between 2000 and 2017 and had photographs and videos of himself near the reservoir. , , , , or visit homepage.
