(SAF0002)

Written evidence submitted by Rebecca del Tufo (SAF0002)

1. I attended the vigil / demo on Clapham Common on Saturday 13 March. I knew it was
to be both a vigil for Sarah Everard and a demonstration for women’s rights to be on the
streets and to be safe on the streets. Clearly there was a concern around the police given
the fact that the suspect for Sarah Everard’s murder is a serving police officer and the
fact that the Met had refused to engage with the original organisers.

2. When I arrived at Clapham Common around 6.15pm, there were flowers and candles
for Sarah Everard and slogans to reclaim the streets for women. Everything felt peaceful,
almost all people were masked, and people were standing in a socially distanced way.
There were some people with placards, some with the ‘ACAB’ slogan but I don’t
remember many; mostly it was about women’s need to feel safe in public life. I had
passed police vans at the edge of the common.

3. I was on the outer ring around the bandstand, having arrived a bit later and with my
bike. There were some speeches, which were being relayed by the ‘inner ring’ crowd,
although not all was reaching me and those around me.

4. It was a cold evening, and I don’t think people would have stayed for a long time.
People were there to pay their respects to Sarah Everard and to mark their fury about the
lack of safety for women.

5. Then the (mostly male) police arrived, burly, obvious in their high vis tops. They started
asking people to go home (the police officers talking to people were the only time
anyone was closer than 2m to me or to others around me so this in itself felt offensive
and intrusive). It then became clear that the police were trying to silence the female
speakers and the shouts changed from 'Sisters united will never be defeated' and 'Our
streets' to 'Arrest your own' and 'You go home'. That is the point that things turned
angry – because, yet again, men were invading a space that was supposed to be about
women, and were silencing us, and changing the focus to them. Although the police
were not popular on Saturday evening, they were not the focus; that was on women’s
safety more generally from men.

6. Things then began to feel more tetchy, even further out as I was. Another woman with
a bike and I were asked by a pair of police officers to ‘move off the path’ even though
nobody was using the path as we were standing in concentric circles around the
bandstand. One police officer looked hard at the candle I had lit in my bike basket and I
felt that he wanted to find a reason to tell me off for the candle, but just couldn’t work
out what the problem with it was (as there clearly was no problem).

7. I left at this point so was not aware of the police cordoning around the bandstand or
of the arrests. When I saw these on the news when I got home, I was furious, and I
continue to be furious when I see Cressida Dick saying the policing was just around
(SAF0002)

Covid rules, or the suggestion by the deputy Commissioner that the police were facing a
‘very, very hostile situation’. These are lies. The police were riled by the antagonism to
them. Particularly when this fell within days of Chris Witty (I believe) confirming that
Covid is very unlikely to be transmitted outdoors (referencing busy beaches and Black
Lives Matter protests last summer).

8. I noticed this again on Sunday evening when I attended the protest outside New
Scotland Yard. When the shouts went up of ‘Defund the police’, I saw tension in the
officers (one young officer’s neck going pink). There needs to be training that ‘Defund
the police’ and ‘ACAB’ are political statements, not direct allegations that a particular
officer doesn’t deserve their payment or is a bastard. These are calls for structural
change, and it feels that the officers do not understand this.

9. When the protest on Sunday evening moved to Parliament Square, officers were
moving around the crowd, which again felt threatening and an imposition of power and
completely unnecessary, rather than being about keeping the peace.

10. I carry the privileges of being white and middle class, but I live in East London and
see officers sometimes being heavy handed around me. But this was shocking and a
completely over-the-top, unnecessary exertion of power, and a very bad ‘look’ when
women were rightly furious about men’s response to them, and the fact a serving officer
is the suspect for a murder.

Thank you for reading this.

March 2021