"Normal" advice to not walk around at night in Bristol.

I think it is very unusual to be accompanied at all times between sunset and sunrise TBH, or in a car, and it is not desirable that we move to a society where that is the expectation and the norm for females.

ISNT....I just never went alone, not that I stayed in every night!!

Oh I see. What about before the driving years? I used to get the bus/tube around by myself after it was dark when I was in secondary school.

Do some people get driven literally everywhere by their parents, even when they're say 16?

It's not a lifestyle I can imagine, all that driving. And personally I don't think driving should be encouraged anyway, quite the reverse.

ISNT, I think the people who have always managed it are very reliant on cars. Although even then I'm not sure how they can always manage to park so close to their destination that they can avoid walking to/from a car park.

But for those of us who don't drive it's very difficult to avoid walking anywhere alone after dark.

I live near Ipswich, and I had to go out after dark at the time the murders were committed. The thing that made me feel less safe than usual was the fact that other women were avoiding going out, so the streets were even more deserted than usual.

But if I had not gone out, I wouldn't have been able to collect ds from cubs, and do other activities I normally do. I'm not talking about a "night out" here, I'm talking about normal activities, and if this had happened a few years earlier, I would have had to walk to/from work regularly, as most of my shifts finished at 6 pm at the earliest (dark at that time of year).

Really? Not even in the winter when it gets dark at about 4pm?

What about going out in the morning - I have had jobs where I've set off before it was light. One particularly memorable one where I had to catch the bus at a quarter to six (hated it!).

How have you managed it?

I'm not being obtuse, my response is my first and only response to the condemnation of the Police advice.

Perhaps I'm not the best one to talk, I come from a small town and have never walked alone on the dark.

The upset at the original advice is that it said that women should not normally be out by themselves after dark, whether there's a murderer about or not: From the OP "police advice that there was no specif threat to women but to take the "normal" precautions of not walking around after dark on your own".

Like many other women, I walk around after dark by myself all the time. Not least when I come home from work at 6.30. Clearly I am not acting in an insanely negligent way by doing this, but that police statement said that I was.

That is obviously not right.

The revised advice is much better.

If this was a string of murders and we knew it was a man then I would expect a curfew to be introduced for men.

It's likely that it's a man, but it could have been a couple of men, a man and a woman, a woman, two women or one man......noone knows.

When the police know more about the perp then they tell people to be wary of say A white man in a black BMW.

But in the instance that this isn't going to change overnight and someone has killed a young woman in Clifton, possibly from her own home, the advice is sound. I tell my child to be careful online, not because it'#s his fault if he's groomed but he's more likely to be a victim than me.

Noone knows that the murderer is a man.

Bristol feminists have fought this and won. BUT I have no issue with police warning.

If black men were being assaulted in Ashtongate I would expect the police to warn them specifically.

It is not putting blame on women, it is asking people that fit the profile of the victim to be more careful.

Obviously your primary responsibility is to yourself and your family. But I think it's terribly sad if this advice puts people without that choice at greater risk, not just from the murderer but from other people who might take advantage of deserted streets to get up to no good.

I'm sure there must be better ways of handling it (collectively not you as individuals)

Curtailing your lifestyle - it's not just about getting a taxi home from a night out drinking - it's about all the women who work shifts. Public transport in Bristol is notoriously rubbish and car parking is a nightmare, so those options are out for many women.

It's not ideal at all. Of course everyone should be free to go about their business whenever they want, it's just that i think safety outweighs everything else and if curtailing your lifestyle somewhat reduces the risk, then i'd do it like a shot.

Well it's fine if you have that choice, Riven. But for many women there is no choice, because they have to go out after dark to get to or from their places of work.

Assuming he is still in Clifton of course.

but a tiger is different it isn't going to look for an opportunity to attack without being observed is it? It's just going to leap out at someone regardless of audience?

Whereas by advising everyone to stay in you create nice empty streets for human predators who don't want to be seen getting up to no good?