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?

[EldritchCleavage]

I always remember Roland. Very few people do, it's a forgotten crime. Even when Stephen Lawrence died, no one really referred to the earlier case.

There are parallels with the fight against racism, including the feeling that nothing is changing and nothing will change. That's not actually true, it's just that the pace of change is so glacially slow we can't see it happening except at the distance of many years.

When I feel like that I talk to my parents, because they do have that longer term perspective. My father once reminded me that once upon a time people genuinely argued that women (and black people) did not have souls. That is thankfully unimaginable today, where once it was entirely natural. I just hold on to the hope that to my granddaughters, the current attitudes to violence against women will seem almost equally repellent.

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Yes - see the other thread where the foreign national mother is banned from removing her children from the abusive father's house overnight for an extreme example.

Great post btw Eldritch - that was my feeling at the conference, it's not the time. But there will never be a poster child for VAW victims - there has been every possible permutation of daughters/wives/random acquantances killed in this country. None of them move people. It's the norm for men to kill and attack women and the norm for the police to treat the victims with contempt.

The more I learn about the police the more scared I am of them TBH. My mum told me at an early age never to marry a man in uniform - starting to think that is sterling advice.

[sethstarkaddersmum]

I think that's a very interesting post EldritchCleavage.

Thumbwheel - I don't know the details of this case but in a lot of cases the dad has access rights and if the child doesn't go the mum gets into trouble. Maybe that was what was going on here?

[EldritchCleavage]

Sorry, I meant to say Stephen had parents who were married, not that he was married.

[EldritchCleavage]

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.

[thumbwheel]

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?

[MrsClown]

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.

[ClimberChick]

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

[scurryfunge]

The Fawcett report makes interesting reading.

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

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

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

Interesting article about racism/sexism here

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

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 :))

[vesuvia]

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

Indeed, it seems there might be.

[HerBeatitude]

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.

[HerBeatitude]

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.

[vesuvia]

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.

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

N.B. not about the grass

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

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.

[EvilAntsAndMiasmas]

I know

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

[vesuvia]

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.