Plans for a privately run emergency phone line for women walking alone, promised after the murder of Sarah Everard, have been shelved.
The proposal by BT for a service to help protect women travelling alone was welcomed by the then home secretary Priti Patel when it was mooted in October 2021. Patel called it “exactly the kind of innovative scheme” she wanted to get going as soon as possible, while the Home Office said it welcomed “joint working between the private sector and government”.
The BT chief executive, Philip Jansen, wrote to Patel saying the helpline would cost about £50m and could be launched by Christmas.
But on Thursday the company, which also runs the 999 emergency services phone line, confirmed that already delayed plans to make it operational had been axed.
A BT Group spokesperson said: “Our objective was to see how BT Group could lend its expertise to the cause of personal safety – made necessary because of male violence … However, it became clear over the course of our work that it does not make sense, as we thought initially, to launch a new BT service, but rather to share our learnings for the wider benefit of others already working on this.
“Anyone that is concerned about their personal safety should continue to dial 999. Our operators are highly trained, know how to listen for issues even if it is a ‘silent’ call, and will be able to route through to the police if and as needed.”
BT said it was supporting the startup app WalkSafe, which shows crime hotspots and allows individuals to show others where they are on a journey.
WalkSafe’s founder, Emma Kay, said the company was creating a “safety alliance”, which would “bring together exceptional women across security, personal safety and big business”.
The initial hotline was to include a mobile phone app, into which users could enter their home address and other frequent destinations. Before a journey, the company suggested that a person would call or text 888 or use the app to enter an estimated journey time, which would then be tracked by the phone’s GPS system, with the app sending a message to check whether the user had got home. A failure to respond would trigger calls to emergency contacts and subsequently to the police.
At the time of the proposals, some campaigners warned that such apps could put the responsibility of staying safe on to women, rather than preventing male violence against them. The focus, they argued, should be on preventing crimes against women and increasing chronically low criminal convictions.
Woman’s Trust, a charity that provides mental health support to victims of domestic violence, said: “Women’s freedoms and rights shouldn’t be quashed to make more room and excuses for male violence. Funding an app while survivors continue to be let down by the health and criminal justice systems is not the answer.”
Jess Phillips, Labour’s spokesperson for domestic abuse and safeguarding, said: “This helpline was never a serious plan and it is telling of the Conservatives’ weakness that they supported it in the first place.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The 888 phone line for women was a BT project, not a government scheme.”
