How can we NOT need a Lawrence-style enquiry after yet another story like this?

[sethstarkaddersmummyreturns]

mother's warnings ignored by police over 100 times

How can this not be an indicator of systemic sexism similar to the systemic racism the Lawrence enquiry identified?

When I saw the 'epic fail' thread I was tempted to link to the awful story about the nurse murdered by her ambulance driver boyfriend when he was out on bail for her rape, because it seemed to me that that was what really constituted an 'epic fail'.
Well, here's another 'epic fail'.

After quite so many epic fails surely we are due an enquiry?

I asked that question at the conference SSM. Vera Baird said it would "kick the issue into the long grass" but the women from Southall Black Sisters seemed more amenable to the idea.

It is time this was properly investigated, it is too too many cases to be a fucking coincidence.

I can't actually figure out what she means by that. How would it kick the issue into the long grass? Surely it would do the opposite?

Well that's what I thought SSM. My bollocksometer was going off no end. Surely it didn't work like that for the issue of racism in the police.

What all the panellists emphasised was the problem of the getting the police to actually act as they're supposed to, even after enquiries etc.

Still think it needs to happen though, they need a fucking great spotlight turned on their treatment of DV victims and others.

I wonder if she feels that's what happened with the Stern Review and she's cynical about reports as a result of that.

The Lawrence Enquiry was taken very seriously and there's no guarantee an enquiry into sexism would be.

It should still happen though.

EvilAntsAndMiasmas wrote - "Vera Baird said it would "kick the issue into the long grass""

It's already in the long grass. It needs to be kicked out of the long grass and into the open.

I know

I wonder if there are any groups campaigning for this? Are there are policewatch type organisations?

I don't honestly know Proles, I would like to, though.

I think the Lawrence enquiry was quite remarkable because it said the unsayable about the police, and also because his family and the obvious miscarriage of justice were carrying it.

I think possibly Jane Clough's family have a similar campaigning spirit though.

N.B. not about the grass

Proleworth wrote - "Are inquiries often used as a way to shut dissenters up ("look, we're doing something, m'kay?") while actually not doing very much?"

Perhaps some enquiries are smokescreens for not doing much, but I think the effectiveness of an enquiry can only be judged once it has started.

The Lawrences had a really good campaigning lawyer on their side right from the start though.

And that's what this issue needs - a high profile lawyer who gives a shit and is prepared to campaign on it.

Yes I'm not sure how much longer the grass can get actually.

Apparantly the number of women Worboys was supposed to have raped has now risen from 80 odd to at least 100, I heard on the radio this morning.

Prolesworth wrote - "Is there a nether region of even longer grass it could end up in?"

Indeed, it seems there might be.

I don't know, they were protesting outside the court about the behaviour of the judges though.

Is it time for HELENA KENNEDY QC? (Sorry feel she requires caps after Ceri Goddard from Fawcett's nomination of her as president of the world :))

Interesting article about racism/sexism here

Ooh and this from Fawcett - looks like they're on the case.

The Fawcett report makes interesting reading.

That is a very sobering, but also sadly a glaringly obvious report.

It is totally obvious to me that there is institutionalised sexism in the police and other agencies. 17 years ago I was in a very violent marriage and one Saturday night called the police and begged them to come out to my home as I had been beaten by my husband and had 2 children in the house. The officer I spoke to (who was a sargeant) asked me if I really wanted my neighbours to know my husband was hitting me! Also, he said that what was happening in my home was happening all over the country and it would be ok after a good nights sleep. I do not have a lot of confidence that things have changed much. It was Women's Aid who helped me out of that life not the police, they were never that interested. I attempted to get them to help on numerous occasions. They did send a female domestic violence officer out who did inform me that some police officers also beat their wives.

I have no faith in the police at all.

I really shouldn't be asking this here, I'm sure - but why was this girl still visiting her father under the circumstances?

It doesn't in any way detract from the uselessness of the police in this situation, but I cannot understand why she kept going to visit him - and perhaps that is part of the reason why the police dismissed the mother's calls?

The Lawrence case happened at a time when people seemed finally ready to listen on the issue of police racism. When Roland Adams died (14 year old black boy, murdered in racist attack at the bus stop after school in the late 1980s) people weren't, even though his murder was perhaps even more shocking and foul than Stephen's.

I feel that sadly, since our society doesn't seem ready to listen on this issue (just read the vile vile comments in any newspaper online report in a man stalks woman case, to see that borne out; or witness the vitriol directed at Raoul Moat's poor ex who spoke about the abuse he inflicted on her) then no one is willing to expend any political capital on addressing it. Which leaves us all in a Catch-22.

Only when a murder happens that gives us a victim people are not easily able to dismiss or disapprove of will there be a clamour for change. Stephen Lawrence was that person for many white people: law-abiding, aspirational-wanted to be an architect, married, working parents. Plus his father had done some decorating work for Paul Dacre, who abandoned his usual attitudes to campaign for justice for the family. I kid you not.

And before anyone jumps on me I entirely agree that it is revolting that all the women who have suffered up to now are not reason enough to have an inquiry, but that is where we are.