Sarah Everard (Family Handout/CPS/PA)
(Picture: PA Media)The Metropolitan Police breached human rights and hampered efforts to tackle violence against women when it opposed a vigil for murdered Londoner Sarah Everard, the High Court has been told.
An organised vigil on Clapham Common was planned for March 13 last year, but had to be cancelled when Scotland Yard declared it would break Covid-19 rules and expose those in charge to £10,000 fines.
Reclaim These Streets (RTS), the campaigning organisation which wanted to hold the event, is now seeking damages from the Met over its stance, arguing it amounted to a breach of the Human Rights Act.
Tom Hickman QC, for RTS, said the organisers felt “their voices, their grief and anger, had been silenced at the very moment they needed to be heard by police and politicians.
“The stymying of (their) right to hold the vigil in relation to an issue of pressing social significance – the protection of women against violence – and the need to ‘reclaim’ public space for Sarah Everard and other women who had lost their lives or had been the victim of violence was the aim of the vigil.”
Accusing the Met of having a “chilling effect” on RTS and other public protests, Mr Hickman said the police force had caused “the loss of the opportunity…to capture the public mood and build an enduring mass movement to protect woman from violence”.
Scotland Yard is fighting the legal challenge, denying it had acted unlawfully and arguing its actions balances rights with protecting public health.
Ms Everard was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Met Police PC Wayne Couzens, as she walked home from a friend’s house on March 3, 2021.
Couzens, now serving a whole life prison sentence, used his warrant card when capturing the 33-year-old, and is believed to have been pretending to enforce the Covid-19 restrictions when he stopped her on the edge of the South Circular.
A vigil was planned for Clapham Common, one of the last places Ms Everard was seen alive, but came up against Met Police opposition for allegedly being in breach of the government’s restrictions on public gatherings.
RTS mounted a legal challenge to the police position last March, but say they had no option but to cancel and encourage others not to attend an event when, on the evening of March 12, the Met issued a fresh public statement saying attending a vigil would be illegal.
When RTS pulled out, a spontaneous vigil - attended in the early stages by The Duchess of Cambridge - happened in its place and the Met Police came in for strong criticism for the way officers ultimately shutdown the event.
Mr Hickman said the Met had failed to consider if there was a “reasonable excuse” under the Covid regulations that would have allowed an organised vigil to take place.
He said senor officers “made it clear…it was the opinion of the Metropolitan Police that first of all a vigil was prohibited by law and shouldn’t be going ahead.
“Secondly, that the police could offer no assistance and indeed discourage and wanted my clients not to organise such an event. Thirdly, by expressly informing them that if they continued to organise such an event, it would expose them to potential financial penalties under the Fixed Penalty Notice regime of up to £10,000, including to prosecution, possibly under the Serious Crime Act.
“We say in those circumstances the claimants, as law abiding citizens, had no realistic option but to stop organising the vigil and for themselves to encourage people not to attend.
“This represented a significant interference with their rights under articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR, as governed effectively by the Human Rights Act.”
RTS organisers had contacted the police about the planned vigil in advance, suggesting they would enforce social distancing, the wearing of face masks, and a test and trace system. But they say they faced an “unwavering” position that the vigil would be against the law.
“It’s now clear they (The Met) did not give any due account to the importance of Article 10 and 11 rights”, said Mr Hickman.
“They thought it sufficient that grief and sorrow could be expressed in ways that did not involve a gathering.”
Anna Birley, one of four women behind RTS, said: “At its heart this case is about the police accepting their responsibility under human rights law to facilitate peaceful protest – rather than their consistent attempts to silence and threaten women.
“Women were robbed of their chance to come together in solidarity to mourn Sarah and to stand up to the epidemic of violence against women and girls.
“We hope that the ruling will help set an important precedent that protects our right to come together in protest and solidarity in the future.”
The Met is fighting the judicial review proceedings, arguing it could not have given an assurance that those organising a vigil would not be prosecuted, and insisting that it had fully understood and applied the Covid-19 regulations.
It will argue that Parliament, in imposing the Covid rules, had already weighed up the Article 10 and 11 rights against the need to protect public health, and the force had properly carried out its own balancing exercise.
The Met is also expected to contend that it did not make a “formal decision” when in discussions with RTS over the vigil, so cannot be challenged through a judicial review.
Court papers show an officer told a colleague on March 11 last year: “I can’t see how the current legislation can support such an event”, adding: “Any gathering is still illegal and there will be pressure on me….to ensure these regulations are adhered to. We aren’t allowed to have any type of large scale gathering, and we are expected to prevent them from occurring.”
At a Gold group meeting on March 12, one attendee is recorded as saying: “We are seen as the bad guys at the moment, and we don’t want to aggravate this”.
Ahead of the court hearing, the Met issued a statement defending its actions, saying: “The Met was unable to give an advance assurance to the claimants that their involvement in organising the vigil would not put them at risk of enforcement action during, or subsequent to, that event.
“We do not believe our approach was founded on an inaccurate interpretation of the Regulations or that this constituted an unlawful interference with the claimants’ rights.
“Throughout the pandemic, officers worked to balance the need to safeguard the public at large from Covid, with the rights of individuals protected by the Human Rights Act 1998.
“Policing of public order events is highly complex and is one of the most scrutinised areas of law enforcement. We believe we are world leaders in this area.”
Monica Carss-Frisk QC, representing the Met, said in written submissions that the force had not stopped RTS from going ahead with the planned vigil.
“If any of the Claimants’ arguments are correct, it would follow that, had they continued to organise the event, and had enforcement action ultimately been taken in the form of a Fixed Penalty Notice, any prosecution that might have followed a refusal to pay such a fixed penalty would have resulted in an acquittal on the basis that they had a reasonable excuse to organise the gathering in breach of the Regulations”, she said.
The Met says the impromptu vigil on Clapham happened “as a consequence of the significant publicity that (RTS) had generated prior to their withdrawal (no doubt in conjunction with the understandable outrage that the crime had generated).”
RTS is seeking a declaration that the Met’s actions were unlawful, as well as damages for the alleged effects.
The two-day judicial review continues.
