A quarter of police forces in England and Wales are yet to implement “basic policies for investigating sexual offences”, an official report has found, with women still being failed despite promises of change after the murder of Sarah Everard four years ago.
The report by Dame Elish Angiolini follows an inquiry set up after Everard was murdered by a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens, in March 2021. She was abducted off a London street while walking home.
Despite the promises of sweeping changes to make women safer as they walk the streets, Angiolini condemned a “paralysis” hampering improvements even though sexual crimes against women in public were “widespread”.
The second part of her report published on Tuesday says recommendations from the first part, published more than a year ago, are yet to be implemented, such as a ban on joining the police for those cautioned or convicted of sex offences.
In the report, Everard’s mother, Susan, says she is still “tormented” by the horror of what her daughter suffered at the hands of Couzens.
The report says police and government do not know the scale of attacks on women in public spaces by strangers, and the promises that cascaded from those in power after the horror of Everard’s murder are not being met.
In her report Angiolini says: “Twenty-six per cent of police forces have yet to implement basic policies for investigating sexual offences including indecent exposure.”
The names of forces without policies were supplied to the inquiry by the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and at the time were Greater Manchester, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Warwickshire, Cleveland and the Met, which has since produced the policy needed.
She attacks “a troubling lack of momentum, funding and ambition for prevention work” and says the demand in her first report that sexual offenders should be banned from policing has not yet been met.
The report says the focus needs to be on predatory men who attack women, not just better street lighting or safety advice to women.
Angiolini told the Guardian the fact that women were more likely to be attacked meant “it could be perceived” that they are being treated as second-class citizens.
She also called for a tolerance or acquiescence of misogyny to end and said anti-women content online may contribute to violence on the streets and “shape” the views of what is normal and acceptable behaviour.
Angiolini says there needs to be better police investigation of attackers, and also better mapping of attacks to know more about the “patterns of behaviour” of male offenders.
Her report says too many women do not feel safe walking Britain’s streets, and condemns a “scattergun approach” to prevention.
Launching her report, Angiolini said the efforts were “fragmented, underfunded and overly reliant on short-term solutions”.
She added: “There is an urgent need to refocus on preventing offenders from offending and perpetrators from reoffending.”
Police programmes such as Project Vigilant, targeting predators in clubs and bars, and Operation Soteria, which aims to increase the number of sexual assault investigations resulting in a charge, are praised as signs of hope. Angiolini welcomes the Labour government’s pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
But she said more than a year after coming into power, the Labour government’s strategy for delivering on the promises is yet to be produced. “Somehow we have simply come to accept that many women do not feel safe walking in their streets,” the report says.
In the report Everard’s mother tells of her continuing grief: “I go through a turmoil of emotions: sadness, rage, panic, guilt and numbness. They used to come all in one day, but as time goes by they are more widely spaced.
“When I think of her, I can’t get past the horror of her last hours. I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured.”
The report praises “excellent” work and initiatives to increase women’s safety after Everard’s murder but demands a “laser” focus on predatory men and says prevention work to stop them before they attack is “underfunded and under-prioritised”.
For instance, the last Conservative government in 2023 said violence against women and girls was a priority but it was underfunded. She quotes one witness describing the prevention efforts as “a bit like a puffball”, looking “very big, but there’s nothing there”.
Angiolini said despite promises, violence against women and girls was not being taken as seriously as counter-terrorism. She said: “Too often prevention in this space remains just words. Until this disparity is addressed, violence against women and girls cannot credibly be called a national priority.”
Angiolini is a former top law officer in Scotland and the tone of the report is of barely contained anger from a pillar of the establishment at other parts of the country’s power structures for not doing enough to protect women, despite all the promises.
She makes 13 new recommendations in this part of the report.
Andrea Simon, the director of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said: “It is deeply concerning that, nearly two years on, policing has still not implemented basic reforms such as a ban on officers with sexual offence histories … Women cannot be expected to trust a system that resists naming misogyny and racism, and continually fails to change.”
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said: “This government will halve violence against women and girls within a decade, and our upcoming strategy tackling violence against women and girls will set out how we achieve this.”
Deputy assistant commissioner Helen Millichap, the director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection, said: “Policing is determined to respond collectively to the harms caused to women and girls, and to work in partnership with all the agencies mentioned in this report. We will now consider the findings and recommendations carefully and in detail, acknowledging urgent action is required.”
