Sarah Everard vigil attendees are accused of “wanting to fight with police” and assaulting officers when the event was broken up using Covid lockdown laws, a court has been told.
A large crowd gathered at the bandstand on Clapham Common on March 13, 2021, days after 33-year-old marketing executive Ms Everard had been kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a serving Met officer.
Six people are now being prosecuted by Scotland Yard for attending the vigil, with three already convicted and issued with £220 Covid fines.
The cases against Jade Spence, 33, of Lambeth, south London, and Jenny Edmunds, 32, of Lewisham, south-east London, are due to be considered by a magistrate on Wednesday this week.
In a statement to support the case against Ms Spence, PC Shani Minors told Westminster magistrates court it was “very unpleasant and scary” when speeches criticising the police were made, accusing the vigil attendees of “abuse, hate and aggression towards officers”.
Insisting they were “outnumbered “ and surrounded by “thousands” of people, the PC said she and her colleagues entered the crowd to “assist our struggling colleagues being assaulted”.
She said officers tried to encourage people to “pay their respects and then leave” but this “fell on deaf ears”.
“We formed a line and walked through the crowd, who were pushing (and) hitting us”, she said.
“Various members of the crowd tried to block our path, throwing their bikes in our way and being very hostile. I believed they were trying to separate us where the risk of harm to myself was increasing in my mind.
“There was around 4000 people within this crowd who were all against police.”
PC Minors says she arrested Ms Spence, who was refusing to give her name and address, after she had been stood linking arms with other women at the bandstand. She said the arrest “caused the crowd to become even more hostile”, alleging further assaults on police occurred.
“This became a very dangerous and concerning incident as we were surrounded on the bandstand with over 3,000-4,000 people who were very anti-police screaming abuse at officers and assaulting officers from all angles”, she said.
It is said officers were met with protestors in masks and balaclavas as they attempted to take away the arrested women.
“(They) started to push back against officers as well as assault them on the outside of the bubble in order to get access to these females”, said the PC. “I overheard many colleagues around me shouting ‘get back’ but nobody was listening and it was very clear wanted to fight with police.”
PC Wayne Couzens had abused the police’s Covid powers on March 3, 2021, to abduct Ms Everard on the edge of the South Circular as she walked home alone from a friend’s house. He is now serving a whole life prison term for her rape and murder.
PC Christopher Davies was involved in the arrest of Ms Edmunds, and suggested that around 2,000 people were at the vigil – making it “a breach of COVID legislation”.
“The crowd was very hostile towards police upon entering and a large majority of the group did not want to engage with police”, he said in his statement.
“It was very intimidating walking amongst the crowd as they started to shout words of the effect ‘Arrest your own’, ‘Murders’, ‘Scum’, ‘You’re not welcome here’.”
He alleged Ms Edmunds “ignored” him when confronted about her presence at the vigil, and told the court she was arrested and held overnight in a cell after refusing to give her name and address.
Ms Edmunds has pleaded not guilty to the charge of participating in a gathering of more than two people in public outdoor place while London was under Tier 4 restrictions.
In March, the High Court ruled that Scotland Yard had misinterpreted the Covid regulations when blocking an organised Reclaim These Streets vigil for Ms Everard, unlawfully failing to consider the human rights to freedom of speech and assembly.
Neither PC Minors nor PC Davies mention the rights or consideration of a “reasonable excuse” for attending the vigil in their statements.
Entering her not guilty plea, Ms Edmunds’ solicitor Grace Loncraine told the court representations will be made to the Crown Prosecution Service for the case to be dropped “on evidential and public interest grounds”.
She said Ms Edmunds disputes the police account of her “conduct, the conduct of others present, and the conduct of the police”. If the case goes ahead, she intends to abuse of process, challenge the lawfulness of her arrest, and argue she “had a reasonable excuse for attending the gathering in that she was exercising her rights to freedom of assembly and expression in a reasonable manner”, citing the High Court ruling.
Two weeks ago, Dania Al-Obeid, 27, from Stratford, Ben Wheeler, 21, from Kennington, and Manchester resident Kevin Godin-Prior, 68, were all convicted of breaching the Covid rules, and issued with a £220 fine, £100 in costs, and a £34 victim surcharge.
Ms Al-Obeid says she was oblivious to the prosecution until told by the media and intends to apply to the court to reopen her case.
Another defendant, Vivien Hohmann, 20, from Clapham, pleaded not guilty to the same charge and is due to appear in court later this month.
Westminster magistrates court says Ms Spence has not entered a plea.
