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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Clea Skopeliti (now); Lucy Campbell (earlier)

Sarah Everard vigils: Cressida Dick says she will not resign – as it happened

Summary

  • More than a thousand people gathered in London’s Parliament Square on Sunday evening to make their voices heard outside the seat of government following clashes at a vigil for Sarah Everard.
  • Police took a noticeably different approach at the protest, keeping their distance from the crowd at Sunday’s event.
  • At Parliament Square, demonstrators called for the resignation of the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick, and the scrapping of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill.
  • The commissioner of the Metropolitan police said she does not plan to resign, defying pressure as she dismissed “armchair” critics amid widespread outrage over officers manhandling women who were mourning the killing of Sarah Everard. Her refusal comes despite both the home secretary and mayor of London expressing dissatisfaction at her justification for it.
  • Dick said “none of us would have wanted to see the scenes we saw at yesterday’s event”, adding that “if it had been lawful, if it had been a vigil - I’d have been there”.
  • London mayor Sadiq Khan asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to carry out a “full, independent investigation” into the Met police operation at Clapham Common on Saturday evening.
  • The home secretary said that there are “still questions to be answered” over the Met’s policing of the vigil as she asked the chief inspector of constabulary to conduct a review.
  • Reclaim These Streets accused Cressida Dick of putting people at “serious risk” of Covid and of being “manhandled, fined and arrested” by failing to ensure peaceful vigils could be carried out with the co-operation of the Metropolitan Police in a letter posted to Twitter.
  • Patsy Stevenson, who was photographed being pinned to the floor by two male police officers on Saturday, spoke on Sunday to condemn the policing of the vigil the previous day as “disgraceful”.

We’ll be shutting down this blog shortly. Thank you for reading along.

Updated

A group of five from Edinburgh Reclaim These Streets laid flowers and candles at a vigil for to remember Sarah Everard on Sunday evening.

Two members of the group, Kat Cary and Chloe Whyte, walked up the Royal Mile to light candles at the door of Edinburgh Castle.

Earlier, Cary told the Guardian she was shocked at the different approaches that police forces had taken and believed it emphasised that this was a moment for women to come together.

I’ve been in the military for 12 years where I couldn’t forget I was a woman and couldn’t forget I was different. It’s been a few years but this has jogged my memory.”

Edinburgh Reclaim the Street laid flowers and candles at a vigil for Sarah Everard
Edinburgh Reclaim These Streets laid flowers and candles at a vigil for Sarah Everard. Photograph: Aamna Mohdin for the Guardian
Edinburgh Reclaim the Street laid flowers and candles at a vigil for Sarah Everard
Edinburgh Reclaim These Streets laid flowers and candles at a vigil for Sarah Everard. Photograph: Aamna Mohdin for the Guardian

Updated

From Labour MP Nadia Whittome, who spoke at the Parliament Square protest today:

Protesters hold signs and shout during a protest criticising the actions of the police at last night’s vigil on Parliament Square on March 14, 2021 in London, England.
Protesters hold signs and shout during a protest criticising the actions of the police at last night’s vigil on Parliament Square. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images
People gathered in Parliament Square, London, use mobile phones as torches and hold placards, the day after clashes between police and crowds who gathered on Clapham Common on Saturday night to remember Sarah Everard.
People gathered in Parliament Square, London, use mobile phones as torches and hold placards, the day after clashes between police and crowds who gathered on Clapham Common on Saturday night to remember Sarah Everard. Photograph: Catherine Wylie/PA

Updated

There was a markedly different police response at the protest, which was called largely in response to allegedly heavy-handed tactics at the vigil in Everard’s memory on Saturday.

The police kept their distance from the crowd at the latest event. There were six police vans parked outside Westminster tube station but officers largely remained inside them. Several women were allowed to make their speeches at Parliament Square before organisers told the crowd to leave.

Women and men stood quietly listening as the names of women killed by their partners, or who have died in UK prisons, were read out. A minute’s silence was held in memory of Everard, 33, whose body was found in woodland in Kent. A serving Met officer has been charged with her murder.

Aamna Mohdin and Damien Gayle report from Parliament Square:

Reclaim These Streets accuses commissioner of putting people at 'serious risk'

Reclaim These Streets has accused Cressida Dick of putting people at “serious risk” of Covid and of being “manhandled, fined and arrested” by failing to ensure peaceful vigils could be carried out with the co-operation of the Metropolitan Police.

In a letter to the commissioner posted on Twitter, the campaign group said: “We implore you to change your approach and work with us to ensure that any future vigils can be safe, lawful and appropriate.”

The group said it had sought to make contact with the commissioner and had “only ever sought to be constructive”, pointing to the example of Nottingham where a vigil was able to proceed under the watch of officers.

The letter added:

The onus is, and always has been, on you to have enabled this to happen - and by not doing so you have not only put people at a serious health risk through a lack of Covid-safe marshalling and at risk of being manhandled, fined and arrested by your officers, but also at risk of their human rights as defined under Articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act 1998 being infringed upon.

Updated

Hundreds took part in the protest over the police’s handing of vigil at Parliament Square:

Updated

Members of the public hold up a sign reading ‘’Text me when you get home xx’’ in Trafalgar Square during a protest against the The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and criticising the actions of the police at last night’s vigil on March 14, 2021 in London, England.
Members of the public hold up a sign reading ‘Text me when you get home xx’ in Trafalgar Square. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty Images

Updated

The protest dispersed peacefully a couple of hours after it started – a markedly different end to yesterday’s vigil which saw arrests and accusations the Met Police manhandled women.

Aima, who didn’t wish to give her last name, co-founder of All Black Lives UK, said:

There was a genuine atmosphere of solidarity between all women. The organisers had an open mic and people came on stage and speak about their experiences with police and, or their experiences of being a woman. There was a lot of emotion, sadness, anger but also happiness.

I think the police were fearful of harassing us at the protest, they were aggressive at the beginning but I think that they saw how angry and powerful we were and I guess they got scared, with the bad press today.

Speaking at the protest was extremely emotional for me I have been saying the same things over and over for months and I finally think people are getting it.

Patsy Stevenson, who was photographed being pinned to the floor by two male police officers on Saturday, spoke on Sunday to condemn the policing of the vigil the previous day as “disgraceful”.

Stevenson, 28, a physics student from Southend in Essex, said she would like to “have a conversation” with the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, adding: “I think dialogue is very important in this case.”

The anger sparked by images of police pinning protesters to the floor at Clapham Common in London yesterday is matched for many by sheer disbelief. How could the Met have got it so wrong? This was a peaceful vigil to mourn the death of Sarah Everard and highlight endemic violence against women. That the man charged with her abduction and murder is one of its officers made it even more necessary for the service to police sensitively and appropriately. Yet instead of working with organisers hoping to create a safe and socially distanced event, they threatened them with large fines. The vast majority of attendees were masked and acting responsibly. The Met compounded the anger with a statement blaming the participants, which both a government adviser and a Tory MP suggested was redolent of the language of male abusers. Hundreds more protested today.

In a tone-deaf statement likely only to increase public distrust and inflame outrage, the Met commissioner, Cressida Dick, brooked no questions about its actions. She said that each decision sets a precedent. But the case for treating protest separately to other gatherings was already a strong one. In any event, the police response should always be proportionate; this was anything but.

Labour MP Nadia Whittome speaks at the Parliament Square protest:

Aamna Mohdin has been speaking to people who went to vigils outside London on Saturday, with attendees saying there was a marked contrast between policing in the capital and Brighton compared with other cities.

Gatherings went ahead in Bristol, Cambridge and Glasgow with minimal police presence.

One 23-year-old who attended a vigil in Brighton criticised Sussex police:

At first, it was silent, then people were speaking. There was singing and tears; it was really very moving. It really escalated when the police surrounded one of the speakers.

What was so shocking to me about last night when there was criticism of Sussex police, you could see loads of people had felt this pain in some way. I reported a rape a couple years ago to Sussex police and know there’s an institutional problem.

The Peterloo massacre in 1819, the abuses of the suffragettes in the early 20th century, the killing of Blair Peach in 1979, the recent “spy cops” scandal: there have been many dark moments in Britain’s history of policing and protest. To this long list we must now add the scandalous police response to a public vigil held on Clapham Common, south London, marking the disappearance and death of Sarah Everard. That this brutal reaction to the women who gathered to remember her was presided over by the first female Metropolitan police commissioner and the fourth female home secretary is a bitter feminist irony. It should be a reminder that we need to change how the system works, not just the faces that govern it.

After a 24 hours that saw the judgment of her force widely questioned by the home secretary, leader of the opposition, mayor of London, backbenchers and campaigners, the Met commissioner seemed to dismiss critics and said the demands her officers faced were not understood.

Cressida Dick said:

They have to make these really difficult calls and I don’t think anybody should be sitting back in an armchair and saying well that was done badly or I would’ve done it differently without actually understanding what was going through their minds.

Asked if she felt she owed an apology to her frontline officers, Cressida Dick said:

I feel for my officers, I feel for them every day.

She added:

I completely recognise that they are, particularly in this last year, often finding themselves in very very difficult situations, they are policing during a pandemic. Nobody wants a third wave to happen.

It’s only a few weeks since the NHS was on its knees. They have a really difficult job, they have to make fine judgments, they often don’t have infinite information or all the time in the world.

They have to make these really difficult calls and I don’t think anybody should be sitting back in an armchair and saying ‘well that was done badly’ or ‘I would have done it differently’ without actually understanding what was going through their minds.

I guarantee that every single officer who was policing last night, like me, would rather we were not in the time of coronavirus. There could be a large, peaceful set of vigils all over the country.

Most of them would have been at those vigils and I guarantee also that my officers up and down London and beyond, if they weren’t working, will have been thinking of Sarah at 9:30pm last night, they will have been lighting their candles or pausing, and it’s something we care about very, very deeply.

Updated

In her statement, Cressida Dick said the review into the policing of Saturday’s vigil would be “good for public confidence”.

She added:

What we do in one event sets precedent for other events. I am really comfortable that we review what happened.

I don’t think anybody who was not in the operation can actually pass a detailed comment on the rightness and wrongness of it.

This is fiendishly difficult policing but also I’m sure for the people who wanted to express their feelings, that was a difficult situation for them and that’s why it needs a cold light of day, sober review - and I think we’re all agreed on that.

The Parliament Square crowd is now dispersing, with police officers having kept a low profile throughout the vigil.

From Aamna Mohdin

In her statement earlier, Cressida Dick said she welcomes, and is “very comfortable” with, a review into the events at the Sarah Everard vigil on Saturday.

The Met commissioner said the officers were in an “invidious” position when crowds grew, adding:

They then moved to try to explain to people, to engage with people, to get people to disperse from this unlawful gathering and many, many, many people did - unfortunately, a small minority did not.

Asked what she thought when she saw the pictures of the policing at the vigil, she said:

I wouldn’t have wanted to see a vigil in memory of Sarah end with those scenes.

That’s why this morning I said, from what I can tell, I wasn’t there, but from what I can tell, my officers - in a very difficult position, as they have been again and again in the last year policing within coronavirus restrictions, having to uphold the law, having to be impartial, having to be fair.

But of course trying to apply common sense and discretion and if people don’t understand the law, trying to help them to understand and engage and speak before we ever turn to any enforcement, but that is why I said we didn’t want it to end like that, let’s have a review.

She continued:

I spoke in the day to both the home secretary and the mayor, I’m very comfortable with that and I think officers will be as well.

Here is some of the full text from Cressida Dick’s statement just now. The Met commissioner said that if the vigil on Clapham Common had been lawful, she would have been there herself.

She said:

All the women and men of the Met are outraged at what has happened and they’re working as hard as they can to get justice for Sarah. In that context, none of us would have wanted to see the scenes we saw at the end of yesterday’s events.

It’s worth saying, of course, I fully understand the strength of feeling I think as a woman hearing from people about their experiences in the past and what they feel about what happened to Sarah and what has been going on, I understand why so many people wanted to come and pay their respects and make a statement about this.

Indeed, if it had been lawful, I’d have been there, I’d have been at a vigil. And six hours of yesterday was really calm and peaceful, very few police officers around, respectful, people laying flowers, not gathering, and a vigil that did not breach the regulations.

Unfortunately, later on, we had a really big crowd that gathered, lots of speeches and quite rightly, as far as I can see, my team felt this is now an unlawful gathering which poses a considerable risk to people’s health according to the regulations.

These are from the Guardian’s Aamna Mohdin in Parliament Square, where a peaceful protest is under way.

Updated

Reclaim These streets protesters in central London have now moved on to Parliament Square, where they have congregated around the statue of the suffragist Millicent Fawcett.

Sisters Uncut, the feminist, women-led protest group that called today’s protest have explicitly linked it to the passage of the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill, which will be debated in parliament on Monday.

In Parliament Square, protesters chanted “kill the Bill” and slogans against Priti Patel, the home secretary, who has set out a hard line on protest.

Miren Galfarsoro, 21, a student living in New Cross, stood in the crowd holding a home made placard saying: “Resist the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill.” She said:

We are going to lose our rights when it comes to protesting. That means that everyone here today could be arrested. I’ve read the bill and it means you could face ten years in prison for protesting, and protesting is a human right.

Updated

Nobody wants a third wave to happen, Dick said, adding her officers have difficult calls to make every day.

She added that had we not been in a time of coronavirus, officers would have been at vigils up and down the country themselves.

But “unlawful gatherings are unlawful gatherings”, she said.

Cressida Dick not considering resigning and defends Met policing

Dick said her officers have been in a “very difficult position” while trying to uphold the law and apply common sense and discretion, as well as helping people understand the law [Covid regulations].

But given we’re still in a pandemic, officers have to take action – “what we do in one event sets precedent for future events”, she said.

Dick said she is not considering her position, amid fierce criticism of the Met’s handling of the vigil.

Updated

'If it had been lawful, I'd have been there', says Cressida Dick of vigil

The Met police commissioner has said “none of us would have wanted to see the scenes we saw at yesterday’s event”.

She said she fully understands the strength of feeling from people and why so many wanted to come and pay their respects.

Dick adds that “if it had been lawful, if it had been a vigil - I’d have been there”.

Six hours of yesterday was really calm and peaceful, respectful, with people laying flowers and not gathering, she said.

Unfortunately later on, a really big crowd gathered, and “quite rightly”, police officers saw this as in breach of the Covid regulations and moved to get people to disperse from the unlawful gathering.

A small minority of people did not, she said.

Updated

Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said 26 officers were assaulted while policing the vigil on Clapham Common last night and has called widespread criticism of the Met “not right or fair”.

He added that politicians, who have put police officers in the “impossible position” of policing the coronavirus lockdown, should be doing more to support the force.

In a statement, Marsh said:

Yesterday, 26 Metropolitan Police officers were assaulted – punched, kicked, spat at – policing Covid-19 lockdown laws that a democratically elected government have imposed … laws that the mayor of London has called on us to enforce to keep Londoners safe.

Now colleagues are being condemned by politicians of all parties for doing what we have been asked to do by politicians on behalf of society. This is not right or fair. Damned if we do. Damned if we don’t. Are we supposed to enforce Covid-19 regulations or not?

Political leaders should be doing much more to support the police officers they have put in this impossible position.

The thoughts of the Metropolitan Police Federation remain with the family and friends of Sarah Everard.

Updated

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, spoke to the Met police commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, on Sunday morning after her officers clashed with crowds at the vigil for Sarah Everard in Clapham, PA Media understands.

Updated

Demonstrators have begun to march away from New Scotland Yard towards the Houses of Parliament. They are shouting: “Whose streets? Our streets.”

The Labour MP Nadia Whittome said she was joining the demonstration in Westminster. From my colleague Aamna Mohdin:

Hundreds of demonstrators are now arriving in Parliament Square following the protest at police headquarters.

Banners include “Txt me when you’re home babe” and “Believe all women”. The crowd clapped when an announcer said everyone was here to remember Sarah Everard. A minute of silence was held in which the demonstrators lay on the ground.

From the Indy’s Maya Oppenheim

Updated

Cressida Dick is due to make a statement shortly on the Met’s policing of last night’s vigil on Clapham Common.

From ITV’s Paul Brand

Protesters have gathered outside New Scotland Yard to take to protest in response to the police crackdown on the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common last night.

A crowd of hundreds, men and women, stood quietly listening to the names of women killed by their partners, or who have died in UK prisons, being read out.

Protesters carried placards with messages including “the police do not protect us”. They raised their fists for a minute’s silence that was only broken by the noise of a police helicopter overhead.

A demonstrator holds a drawing of Sarah Everard near New Scotland Yard.
A demonstrator holds a drawing of Sarah Everard near New Scotland Yard. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

Sophie Brown, 28, a former theatre stage manager from north London, was in the crowd carrying a placard saying: “txt me when you’re home, babe.” She said:

It’s about time the laws are changed. There’s plenty of police on the street but there seems to be no justice whatsoever.

This is happening regularly; this is not a one-time thing. This is every single day. Four, five, six times a day. Constantly being heckled, being afraid to walk the streets, being scared to wear certain things, being scared to walk in the dark.

Updated

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, has said he does not think Cressida Dick should resign as Met police commissioner, despite the policing of last night’s vigil, adding “we need to see the reports”. He welcomed the investigation into what happened on Clapham Common.

This is from the Times’s Henry Zeffman

'Still questions to be answered' over Met policing of vigil, home secretary says

The home secretary, Priti Patel, has asked Sir Tom Windsor, the chief inspector of constabulary, to conduct a review into the policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common on Saturday, after a report provided by the Met left “questions still to be answered”.

A Home Office statement read:

The Home Secretary has read the report provided by the Metropolitan Police and feels there are still questions to be answered.

In the interests of ensuring public confidence in the police, earlier this afternoon the Home Secretary asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to conduct a lessons learned review into the policing of the event at Clapham Common.

Sadiq Khan, has also asked Windsor to investigate the policing of yesterday’s vigil and following an unsatisfactory meeting with Cressida Dick and her deputy this afternoon.

Updated

As people gathered outside New Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan Police Events team tweeted:

Martin Hewitt, the chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said he would bring together police chiefs on Monday to discuss “what more we can do to better protect women”.

On the Met policing of vigil making women feel unsafe, Hewitt said:

It is very challenging to police protests or large gatherings where people want to come together and make their voices heard in a way that is currently restricted in law because of the serious risk to public health. Decisions about how to police these events are difficult and finely tuned.

We recognise there are concerns about the policing of the vigil at Clapham Common and the Metropolitan Police have been clear that they review all operations and will do the same with this event. We remain absolutely committed to helping to keep women safe, and feeling safe.

Updated

The statement from London’s mayor is a calibrated rebuke to the commissioner of the Metropolitan police he was so proud to help appoint in 2017.

It does not address the issue of whether Sadiq Khan continues to have full confidence in Cressida Dick. But saying he is not satisfied with the explanation given, is hardly a ringing endorsement.

Adding that assurances he was given by the Met “that the vigil would be policed sensitively” were not kept, takes relations to a new low.

Khan then piles on the pressure by asking the policing inspectorate and the police watchdog to investigate.

The meeting at City Hall was described as “forthright”. The home secretary is expecting the report she demanded from the Met today, and will wait for that before deciding what if any action to take.

Dick still has over one year to run on her five-year contract. In 2008, when Sir Ian Blair was commissioner of the Met, he resigned after losing the confidence of the then London mayor, Boris Johnson. Explaining his resignation, he said:

Without the mayor’s backing I do not think I can continue in the job.

Some expected Dick to issue a new statement today. The Met is not saying.

The London mayor is in effect the police and crime commissioner for London, a duty he delegates to a deputy mayor.

Updated

This is from the Guardian’s Jenny Stevens outside New Scotland Yard, where a second vigil is under way.

Updated

Cressida Dick, the Met’s first female commissioner, who prides herself on backing her officers, is walking a tightrope over the force’s policing of the Sarah Everard vigil last night.

The appointment of the Met’s commissioner is a choice made by the home secretary, who is supposed to take into account the views of the mayor of London. And what they give, they can take away.

The fact that both Priti Patel and Sadiq Khan decided to intervene so quickly, amid allegations of heavy-handed policing of the vigil on Clapham Common is a sign of the trouble that Dick is in.

Both main parties want to appear pro-police, but heavyweights from across the political spectrum spoke out as pictures of male officers tussling with women at the vigil flooded across mainstream and social media.

The events present a series of dilemmas and dangers for Dick. She prides herself on backing her officers. This time, that is a risky option.

Dame Cressida Dick at New Scotland Yard earlier this afternoon, the day after heavy-handed policing of crowds who gathered on Clapham Common on Saturday night to remember Sarah Everard.
Dame Cressida Dick at New Scotland Yard earlier this afternoon, the day after heavy-handed policing of crowds who gathered on Clapham Common on Saturday night to remember Sarah Everard. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Dick has previously survived what many thought would have ended her career. She was in charge in 2005 when officers shot an innocent man dead, having mistaken Jean Charles de Menezes for a terrorist.

In 2011, she became head of counter-terrorism, a job she loved, but the then commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe ousted her and she soon left the Met. But Dick proved adept at having enough allies to return as commissioner in 2017, the only woman to hold that role in the Met’s 192-year history.

In the past year she has been criticised over Operation Midland, the disastrous Met investigation into a VIP paedophile ring, and by others over alleged racial discrimination in the way stop and search is carried out.

Two of her last three predecessors have been ousted before their five-year term was up. In 2008, the then London mayor, Boris Johnson, got rid of Sir Ian Blair by stating he no longer had confidence in him. Blair said: “Without the mayor’s backing I do not think I can continue in the job.”

The future of today’s commissioner is also in the hands of politicians, against the backdrop of an angry and frustrated public.

Read Vikram’s full analysis here:

Updated

Home secretary asks Chief Inspector of Constabulary for report on Met policing of vigil

The home secretary, Priti Patel, has asked Sir Tom Windsor, the chief inspector of constabulary, to conduct a “lessons learned” review into the policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common on Saturday.

This is from ITV’s Paul Brand:

As we’ve just reported, Sadiq Khan, has also asked Windsor to investigate the policing of yesterday’s vigil and following an unsatisfactory meeting with Cressida Dick and her deputy this afternoon.

Updated

Sadiq Khan 'not satisfied with explanation' from Met commissioner

In his full statement, the London mayor says he was given assurances “that the vigil would be policed sensitively”:

In my view, this was not the case.

I asked the commissioner and deputy commissioner to come into city hall today to give me an explanation of yesterday’s events and the days leading up to them. I am not satisfied with the explanation they have provided.”

Updated

London mayor calls for independent police investigation

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) to carry out a “full, independent investigation” into the Met police operation at Clapham Common on Saturday evening.

Khan has also asked the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) to investigate the actions of individual police officers at the vigil.

Sir Peter Fahy, the former chief constable of Greater Manchester police told the Guardian the coronavirus laws voted through by parliament had left police in an impossible position. He said:

If politicians are going to rush to judgment on the basis of mobile phone footage, having previously demanded police take firmer action breaking up gatherings, all police chiefs [are] in an impossible position.

Earlier today, from the leader of the Met’s rank and file, there was a swipe at politicians after the widespread criticism of police actions. Ken Marsh, chair of the Met Police Federation, said:

Politicians of all parties should make themselves aware of all the facts before rushing to judgment and making statements.

Updated

One image has come to symbolise the horrifying turn of events at the vigil on Clapham Common on Saturday in memory of Sarah Everard: a young woman pinned to the floor by two male police officers, hands held behind her back, eyes wide in defiance.

Patsy Stevenson, whose photo was shared thousands of times on social media and on newspaper front pages, said the way the vigil on Saturday was policed was “disgraceful”.

Stevenson, 28, told LBC radio on Sunday that she was still unsure why she had been detained and was contemplating whether to challenge the £200 fine she had received. She said she would like to sit down with Cressida Dick, adding: “I think dialogue is very important in this case.”

She said the protest was peaceful before Met police officers closed in and that she had been arrested for “just standing there”. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. She said police threw her to the floor. “I’m 5ft 2in and I weigh nothing. Several police were on my back trying to arrest me.”

Stevenson said she was arrested, put in handcuffs and then dragged away, surrounded by about 10 police officers. In a police van, they took her name and address and gave her a £200 fine.

Labour to vote against policing bill

Labour will oppose a new law handing police and the home secretary greater powers to crack down on protests, it has announced amid anger at how officers broke up a vigil for Sarah Everard.

David Lammy, the shadow justice secretary, said the 33-year-old’s killing had “instigated a national demand for action to tackle violence against women” and so it was “no time to be rushing through poorly thought-out measures to impose disproportionate controls on free expression”.

The police, crime, sentencing and courts bill will give the home secretary, Priti Patel, powers to create laws to define “serious disruption” to communities and organisations, on which police can then rely to impose conditions on protests.

On Thursday, civil liberties campaigners told the Guardian it amounted to a “staggering assault” on the right to protest.

In a bid to highlight inaction by ministers on the issue, Lammy on Sunday said the legislation was a “mess” that “could lead to harsher penalties for damaging a statue than for attacking a woman” and warned it would “divide the country”.

His announcement came after several Labour MPs on the left of the party said they would vote against the bill when it was debated in the Commons.

They are unlikely to be joined by enough Conservative rebels to manage to defeat the government, however.

Updated

Nimco Ali, who earlier said that police handling of the vigil in Clapham on Saturday night was “from the handbook of abusive men”, has said she was speaking “as an activist, not in my capacity as a government adviser”.

Ali was appointed as the government’s adviser on violence against women and girls in October 2020 and is also a longtime campaigner against female genital mutilation.

Jack Hopkins, leader of Lambeth council – which covers Clapham Common – and Jacqui Dyer, the council’s cabinet member for community safety, have called the Met’s policing of the vigil “shocking and appalling”.

They say:

The event could have been a peaceful and respectful opportunity to pay tribute to Sarah’s memory and for the voices of women and girls to be heard. Instead the senior leadership of the Metropolitan police refused to engage with Reclaim These Streets and tried to clamp down, infringing the rights of assembly of women and girls and causing even more pain in an already deeply painful week.

They say the statement from the Met was “completely inadequate” and call for an independent investigation.

Police action 'from handbook of abusive men' says government adviser

Nimco Ali, the government’s adviser on violence against women and girls, has given an interview to Times Radio in which she says police handling of the vigil in Clapham on Saturday night was “from the handbook of abusive men”.

She said:

Honestly, it does come from the handbook of abusive men, where … you’re constantly blaming the victim for your act of violence, so rather than actually taking accountability it was more like ‘women should not have turned up’.

The police had the opportunity to choose how they reacted and they reacted in a terrible way and a disproportionate way.

Ali said there was a broader issue in policing, with many women reluctant to report violent crimes and sexual assaults. She continued:

Male violence against women is not inevitable; it can be prevented … The reality is that most men are silent about the bad men when they commit this violence.

Ali declined to comment on whether Cressida Dick ought to consider her position as Met police commissioner.

Updated

As we reported earlier, a second vigil is due to take place outside New Scotland Yard in central London at 4pm. If you are going to be attending any Sarah Everard vigils later this afternoon, my colleague Aamna Mohdin would like to hear from you!

Please reach out to her via email at aamna.mohdin@theguardian.com or on Twitter @aamnamohdin.

Updated

Morning summary

  • The Home Office is taking last night’s “upsetting” scenes from the Met’s widely criticised policing of the Clapham Common vigil “very seriously”, Victoria Atkins said, as she resisted immediate calls for Cressida Dick to resign. The minister said the Met should be “held to account by democratically elected politicians” and “explain their actions to the wider public”, but avoided calling – as the Liberal Democrats have done – for the Met police commissioner to quit. Atkins said police would have to explain what happened and Dick was writing a report to the home secretary, Priti Patel. Figures from across the political spectrum are united in criticism of the events, with Tory MPs among those who have condemned the Met’s approach as “appalling”.
  • It comes as Scotland Yard defended its policing of the vigil, claiming officers had to intervene “where enforcement action was necessary”. It has sparked further frustration by some of those in attendance who blamed officers for escalating what had been a largely peacefully event. Amid cross-party anger at the Met’s heavy-handedness, the assistant commissioner Helen Ball said police were put into a position “where enforcement action was necessary”, because of “the overriding need to protect people’s safety” amid the risk of spreading Covid-19. Four people were arrested for public order offences and for breaches of the health protection regulations.
  • Labour has not yet been drawn on whether the Met chief should go. The shadow domestic violence minister, Jess Phillips, told Ridge on Sunday this morning: “The reality is if Cressida Dick stays or goes it doesn’t make women in this country safer.” Phillips condemned the policing of the vigil, saying the Met had “got it wrong at every single turn” and missed the opportunity to work with organisers to hold a safe and peaceful vigil for people to grieve. She said the images from last night will only “undermine” their efforts to get women to come forward.

Updated

The three organisers of yesterday’s in-person vigils in Glasgow, which passed off peacefully with minimal police presence, have condemned the actions of the Met at Clapham last night.

Jenn Nimmo-Smith, Nikki and Lauren Forde said:

We have been utterly disgusted at the violent scenes that we and the world watched unfold in Clapham.

Reclaim These Streets, at its very core, stands for women being safe in our streets. To witness the Met police – as soon as it was dark – come down with such disproportionate force demonstrates just how little regard they have for our safety.

Glasgow stands in solidarity with all those who attended Clapham Common to pay their respects to Sarah Everard …

While we were able to hold localised vigils without any gathering at four locations in Glasgow with minimal police presence, the emphasis should very much be on the barbaric way that attendees were treated in Clapham. This is not okay and the Met police must be held accountable for their actions.

Updated

It would be “too simplistic a response” to ask Cressida Dick to resign, the former women’s minister Maria Miller has said.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme, the Tory MP, who has also chaired the women and equalities select committee, said:

Cressida Dick has got a huge amount of experience to bring to bear on this and whilst I’m sure she will want to look at the way in which events were policed last night we need that experience to look for solutions to this problem. There are practical things that the police and other bodies need to be doing and now is not the time simply to ask people to resign. That’s too simplistic a response.

Responding to the Met’s policing at the vigil on Clapham Common, the Green mayoral candidate, Sian Berry, has added to calls for Cressida Dick’s position to be considered.

In a statement, she said:

I can’t think of a more shameful way for an organisation to have handled this whole situation.

There was literally no chance of this being a violent event if it had been left in peace. And given what prompted it, these scenes are just abhorrent and traumatic to see for so many of us.

The Met has failed on every level and it’s hard to see how the commissioner, the mayor and home secretary could not be considering her position right now.

The Met must be held to account. The London assembly police and crime committee is already due to meet next week to discuss policing, including the Sarah Everard case and wider questions about violence against women. I will be raising questions about what we’ve seen on Clapham Common.

Updated

Here is the clip from the early hours of this morning of the Met’s assistant commissioner, Helen Ball, saying officers were put into a position “where enforcement action was necessary”, because of “the overriding need to protect people’s safety”.

Four people were arrested for public order offences and for breaches of health protection regulations.

The Met have defended their policing of the London vigil in memory of Sarah Everard, after widespread criticism of the force’s handling of the gathering.

One of the organisers of the cancelled Reclaim These Streets vigil in Clapham has said last night’s scenes were “painful and triggering to see” and accused the Met of “silencing” those who wanted to pay their respects.

The morning after officers were seen tussling with some of those in attendance, Jamie Klingler told the PA Media news agency:

I think we were shocked and really, really sad and to see videos of policemen handling women at a vigil about violence against women by men. I think it was it was painful and pretty triggering to see.

The fact that nobody stepped in and said: ‘do you see how this looks?’. The fact that Thursday and Friday they wasted our organising time by dragging us to the high court for our human rights to protest and we were going to have a silent vigil.

She added:

I was bringing my tiny dog, and we were absolutely doing it to have a silent, respectful protest for Sarah Everard, and for all the women affected …

Especially today, it’s Mother’s Day. It’s the week of International Women’s Day. And instead of allowing and facilitating it like the Lambeth police wanted to – and that police force was so supportive – Scotland Yard quashed us and in doing so silenced us and got the reaction they got last night.

Klingler also criticised the Met’s defence of its actions, after the assistant commissioner Helen Ball said officers were put in a position “where enforcement action was necessary”.

She said the event would have been carried out safely had the original Reclaim These Streets vigil been allowed to go ahead, adding that the only reason people had crowded close together was because they could not.

We had a PA system, we had one steward for every 30 people that was going to attend, we’ve had all of those things in place, so that there would not have been any crowding so that there would not have been any issues.

The problem came with them cancelling the infrastructure and then management of that crowd. Anybody could have seen this coming down the pike. It didn’t take a truth like a future teller to see this was gonna happen.

Updated

Parallels between the way that police treated rowdy football fans in Glasgow last weekend and the response to women congregating peacefully on Clapham Common last night were drawn by Sky’s Sophy Ridge this morning, but Scottish organisers say they should be treated with caution.

Kat Cary, one of the organisers of a planned in-person vigil outside the Holyrood parliament in Edinburgh which was later moved online, said:

Although tempting, we should not draw too many parallels between the actions of the Met police at Clapham Common and last week’s events in Glasgow.

Police Scotland were courteous and helpful when speaking to organisers of the since-cancelled Edinburgh vigil, and their considerations were greatly appreciated by myself and the other women who organised the event.

I fear that this situation will be cause for greater escalation if significant measures aren’t taken. Respect goes both ways, and the Met police owe the women they supposedly serve a large and substantive gesture of good faith after yesterday’s shameful conduct.

Yesterday, Cary said that women were “being treated like children” and their collective grief dismissed as “frivolous and unnecessary” by media questioning the logistics and safety of the planned vigils.

Updated

Responding to the Home Office minister Victoria Atkins’ comments on BBC1’s The Andrew Marr Show this morning, Sir Ed Davey has said ministers should not wait for the commissioner’s report on the Met’s handling of the Clapham vigil and reiterated his call for Cressida Dick to go.

The Liberal Democrat leader said in a statement:

People want ministers to act decisively, not play for time waiting for reports. It’s already crystal clear that what happened last night was a complete tactical and moral failure by the Met police.

Cressida Dick has lost the confidence of women in London and she must now resign.

The [case] of Sarah Everard has left millions of women angry and in grief. They deserved the opportunity to collectively grieve in a peaceful open-air vigil.

Yet from start to finish the Met police got this wrong. They refused to cooperate with organisers trying to put on a Covid-safe event. Then used inappropriate and disproportionate force against women standing peacefully in a park.

The home secretary must act now.

Updated

Two former Labour police ministers have added to the chorus of criticism of the Met’s “absurd” handling of the vigil in Clapham last night.

The shadow minister for domestic violence Jess Phillips called this morning for better funding and resources for education to prevent violence against women.

She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show educating boys was crucial:

I think that we’ve got a responsibility to be looking at the way that we educate, the way that all of society operates, that means that women end up being treated as objects on our streets and it’s not all men, but it is all women.

Phillips said Labour has consistently backed compulsory health sexual relationships education in schools and called for the government to ensure teaching is robust and properly resourced to end the “terribly patchy approach” across the country.

The feminist group Sisters Uncut has called for “no more police powers” following what they called disruptive displays of “police brutality” against the women who attended the Clapham Common vigil last night.

The group is gathering at 4pm this afternoon for a second vigil outside New Scotland Yard to call for a stop to proposed legislation - the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill - to increase police powers.

The group said:

The powers [in the bill] will empower police to decide where, when and how citizens are allowed to protest and have their voices heard by those in power. It will also increase penalties for those breaching police conditions on protests. The right to protest is essential for all people, and especially survivors of violence, to hold powerful institutions accountable.

The interim director of the human rights organisation Liberty, Gracie Bradley, said:

Police were given the choice on how to approach this protest. They could have worked with organisers to ensure people could collectively grieve and protest a lack of protection. But instead they chose aggressive interventions that put people’s health at risk and led to chaos and distress.

Protest isn’t a gift from the state – it’s our fundamental right. Not content with all but banning protest during the pandemic, the government is now using this public health crisis as cover to make emergency measures permanent. Its new policing bill is an all-out assault on our right to protest. It’s those of us who are most at risk of having our rights abused who will find we’re even less able to hold the powerful to account.

This is from Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner

After the Metropolitan Police defended its approach to the Clapham vigil, Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey, who has already called for the Met commissioner Cressida Dick to resign over officers’ handling of the vigil, said it was “tone deaf”.

Marr has cited comments in which the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and the chief medical officer for England, Prof Chris Whitty, agreed that outdoor marches did not lead to spike in Covid infections.

So what was the real threat that made this happen on Clapham Common, he has asked Atkins.

The Home Office minister replied she appreciates the rules that have been put in place due to the pandemic are difficult and said she took part in a virtual vigil.

Asked about comments from Mark Harper, chair of the Covid Recovery Group - made up of Tory MPs advocating for faster loosening of lockdown restrictions - criticising the scenes as well as the Covid regulations in place, Atkins emphasised the importance of the roadmap in easing lockdown.

She added:

I really do understand the emotions that are running high, last night and this morning on this, because nobody wanted yesterday to be a story about policing. We all wanted it to be a moment where we reflect on the tragic case of Sarah Everard but also other women’s experiences as well.

Asked whether the leadership of the Met is now in question, Atkins referred to the report and said it is right that the police be asked to explain their actions.

The Home Office minister, Victoria Atkins, whose brief covers crime and safeguarding, is speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show now.

Asked whether the Met should have found a way for the Clapham Common vigil to take place legally and safely, Atkins said throughout the day people visited the common to pay their respects and “for the overwhelming majority of people it was a peaceful experience but then we saw these incidents”.

She reiterated that she found the pictures [of women being restrained by police] “incredibly upsetting” and that is why the home secretary has asked the Met commissioner for a report.

The police are operationally independent, they have a very tough job to do, but I think it’s right that they explain their actions both to democratically elected politicians but also to the wider public.

Updated

The victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird QC said there was no real prospect of police successfully intervening in the crowd in Clapham on Saturday night, describing the circling of the bandstand as “quasi military” and a “dreadful misjudgement”.

She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday:

To push people away seems to me to be a dreadful piece of misjudgment.

Are they really improving the chances of Covid not spreading by putting their knees in the middle of the back of young women, and putting their hands in handcuffs?

It didn’t seem to me to be the right thing to do.

Baird added:

There needs to be some significant government leadership, and there needs to be a significant drive to change the culture, to acknowledge that we are in real danger of losing confidence in the criminal justice system from half of the population of this country.

Despite most official vigils for Sarah Everard being cancelled, people brought floral tributes and left messages of solidarity at locations around the country yesterday. Take a look here.

Asked by Marr about individual police officers and forces having had to make decisions under Covid regulations, Jess Phillips said:

Within the legislation that has been nodded through, there was room for yesterday, a peaceful vigil to take place and they missed the opportunity for that to happen.

Phillips highlighted that this was able to happen at other vigils outside of London.

Asked whether Cressida Dick, the Met police commissioner, should resign, the shadow domestic violence minister Jess Phillips told Marr she was there to talk about violence against women and girls, and Sarah Everard.

This is not the day for me to say whether she should go and give a headline on Cressida Dick when Sarah Everard is the name that should ring out.

Updated

Jess Phillips is speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show now.

“The police have got it wrong at every single turn,” she said.

Not just the final image that we see, but all day yesterday and the day before, the police did not try and find a way for a peaceful protest - not a protest, actually - a vigil, a moment.

The did not try to find a way to work with women who are sad and angry and upset to be able to, not even gather but just go to Clapham Common.

There are a million ways that that could have been organised but the police put their foot down before they put their boot in and at every stage they made the wrong call.

Updated

On the Sarah Everard case, Jess Phillips said it has cut through because it speaks to every woman’s experience of being afraid, adding that even the future queen of the country [the Duchess of Cambridge] can relate to it.

Kate was seen at the bandstand in Clapham Common paying her respects yesterday afternoon.

Phillips told Ridge on Sunday:

Enough is enough.

Jess Phillips, Labour’s shadow domestic violence minister, told Ridge on Sunday there were so many missed opportunities yesterday for the police to work with organisers to hold a safe vigil for people to express their sorrow and resistance.

The images from last night will only “undermine” their effort to get women to come forward, she added.

Asked whether the Met police commissioner Cressida Dick should go, Phillips said she wished the “heavy hand of the law” had been there for the many women harassed and sexually assaulted, including a woman who recently brought forward a rape accusation in her constituency - that was eventually thrown out.

The reality is if Cressida Dick stays or goes, it doesn’t make women in this country more safe.

From the Mirror’s Pippa Crerar

Updated

Here is our overnight story detailing how, amid cross-party anger, the Metropolitan police defended its policing of the Clapham vigil as “necessary”. Officers were put in a position where they had to take “enforcement action”, said assistant commissioner Helen Ball.

Updated

Home Office 'taking the scenes we saw last night very seriously', minister says

The home office minister Victoria Atkins, whose brief is crime and safeguarding, is speaking to Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News now.

Atkins said the majority of people who attended the vigil in Clapham Common had a peaceful experience. However, the scenes last night were “very upsetting”, she said, and the home secretary “takes it very seriously”, which is why she has asked the Met for a “full report” of what happened.

Asked about images of a woman held to the ground by police, Atkins said that would form part of the report from the Met to the Home Office.

From Sky’s Rob Powell:

Ridge also asked her about the comparison between the large group of (mostly) men who were allowed to gather in Glasgow after the Rangers won, and police arresting women at the peaceful vigil last night. Atkins referred once again to the report the Home Office has demanded.

Though event policing is “challenging at the best of times”, she added, the police should be held to account by democratic means.

Atkins declined to answer whether she thinks the police service is sexist, but said a survey into violence against women and girls has be reopened and had more than 15,000 responses.

Asked whether the Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, should resign, Atkins said she should be given a chance to respond and referred once again to the report.

I really, really want to support the home secretary in her request to have a report from Cressida. The police have got a tough job in policing the coronavirus pandemic at the moment.

Referring to last night, Atkins said this “is not what any of us wanted”.

Updated

Good morning. Police at a vigil in memory of Sarah Everard were “placed in a position where enforcement was necessary”, Scotland Yard said amid pressure to explain its handling of the gathering and with Met police commissioner Cressida Dick facing calls to resign.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, and Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, both said they had demanded an explanation from the Met, amid accusations that officers had grabbed women during tussles with the crowd and mismanaged the largely peaceful vigil in Clapham Common, south London.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Scotland Yard confirmed that four people were arrested for public order offences and breaching coronavirus restrictions at the vigil.

There was outcry across the political spectrum at the way the Met policed the event. Patel described footage circulating online of the police’s actions as “upsetting” and confirmed she has demanded a full report on what happened. Khan added that he was in contact with Dick and “urgently seeking an explanation”.

The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, said the scenes were “deeply disturbing”, adding: “This was not the way to police this protest.” The Liberal Democrats leader, Sir Ed Davey, went further, writing a strongly worded letter to Dick. In it, he said: “This was a complete abject tactical and moral failure on the part of the police.” He added Dick should “consider her leadership”.

The gathering on Clapham Common, near where Everard was last seen, had been largely peaceful, but the atmosphere turned when police surrounded the bandstand, covered in floral tributes to the 33-year-old.

As several women were escorted away by police, the crowd chanted “shame on you” - and during one confrontation, a distressed woman told officers: “You’re supposed to protect us.”

Assistant commissioner Helen Ball defended the police’s actions in a statement. She said:

Around 6pm, more people began to gather close to the bandstand within the common. Some started to make speeches from the bandstand. These speeches then attracted more people to gather closer together.

At this point, officers on the ground were faced with a very difficult decision. Hundreds of people were packed tightly together, posing a very real risk of easily transmitting Covid-19.

She added:

Those who gathered were spoken to by officers on a number of occasions and over an extended period of time. We repeatedly encouraged those who were there to comply with the law and leave. Regrettably, a small minority of people began chanting at officers, pushing and throwing items.

Ball said Scotland Yard accepts that the actions of their officers have been questioned, but added:

We absolutely did not want to be in a position where enforcement action was necessary. But we were placed in this position because of the overriding need to protect people’s safety.

Let me end by saying that across the Met we review every single event that we police to see if there are lessons that can be learnt. This one will be no different.

Updated

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