March 2024

 

Hello and welcome to our March vigil.

We meet on the 1^st Monday of each month to highlight the issue of male violence against women and girls, and to honour the women killed by men.

We’ve been doing this since September 2021 when we realised that just 6 months after Sarah Everard was murdered by Wayne Couzens - when big headlines were written, and huge political promises were made - more than 50 other women had been murdered by men and only one of those had made national headlines, and nothing had changed…

And still nothing has changed.

We gather our information from the same source that MP Jess Phillips uses – a charity called the Femicide Census. Let me stress that – a charity, not a government department or a civil servant, officially this data doesn’t exist.

 

For the past nine years, Phillips has read a list of women killed by men or where a man is the principal suspect in the UK, and she read the latest list last week.

She described the task as an honour but said she had grown “weary and tired” of it.

Speaking in a virtually empty House of Commons – because nobody cares – she said “I am tired that women’s safety matters so much less in this place than small boats. I am tired of fighting for systematic change and being given table scraps. Never again do I want to hear a politician say that lessons will be learned from abject failure, it is not true,” she said, adding that at least half of the women whose names she read out could have been saved.

Last week the press extensively covered the report from the inquiry chaired by Lady Elish Angiolini. It said that Wayne Couzens should never have been given his job as a police officer and chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed.

To quote my old granny – “no shit Sherlock!!”

And there was also extensive coverage when the body of Abdul Ezedi. Was recovered from the River Thames. Having previously been convicted of sexual assault and exposure he was the prime suspect in a hideous chemical attack on a mother and her two young daughters.

And I don’t want to belittle the importance of those two stories, but… I do want to point out that at least 6 more women are reported to have been killed by a man in the UK since we last met – and there has been not one word of national press coverage and no official recording of the statistics.

So we’re going to take a moment to honour them now and read their names:

26 January 2024: Claudia Kambanza, 22, was stabbed on a street in Hull. She died a short time later. Her partner, Mateus Johannes, 28, has been charged with murder and possession of a bladed article.

9 February 2024: Michele Romano, 68, was found with serious injuries at her son’s home in Chelmsford. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Her son, Sebastian Compton, 47, has been charged with murder.

11 February 2024: Claire Leveque, 24, was found dead at a property in Shetland. Aren Pearson, 39, is charged with murder.

12 February 2024: Sam Varley, 44, was found dead at her home in Leeds. Warren Spence, 54, has been charged with murder.

23 February 2024: Paramjit Gosal-Gill, 40, suffered serious injuries at a property in Beaconsfield. Paul Gill, 39, has been charged with murder.

2 March 2024: Wendy Francis, 61, died at an address in Worcester. Another woman was found with serious injuries and was taken to hospital. Damien Homer, 50, has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

 Friday this week - March 8^th - is International Women’s Day, one of the most important days of the year to celebrate women's achievements, educate and raise awareness about the lack of women's equality and to call for positive change advancing women.

And being women that’ll probably get done before lunch…

I’m sure you all have your own plans to mark the day but I’d like to tell you what I’m going to do.

I’m going to write to our local MPs and Councillors and Local Press and National Press and I’m going to tell them how angry I am that Violence Against Women and Girls is not being taken seriously enough and not being given a high enough priority or profile.

If you’d like to do the same I would be really grateful.

As ever, thank you for being here, please feel safe as you make your way home now and please feel empowered to report anything that you suspect is domestic abuse amongst your friends and neighbours.

 

Take care and we’ll look forward to seeing back here next month – please check for confirmation of the date – Mon 1^st April is Easter Monday and April Fools’ day so we might hold off a week…