July 2024

Welcome to our monthly VAWG vigil here in Twickenham

Today I want to talk about change

· Upcoming General election

· The media now uses the term VAWG

· The Guardian – prints a list of women who have died

· Killed Women – relatives of these victims are campaigning for change They are wanting reviews of cases where women have fallen from a height to make sure it was not murder.

· Jess Phillips MP – annually reads out those women who have been killed in the past year (though she is tired of this).

· The White Ribbon movement that our Council has signed up to.

We also need a change to society’s attitude to violence that it is no longer acceptable or inevitable behaviour and this means we need to address systemic change so that services that support all witnesses and victims that need protection automatically receive this.

At Zara Aleena recent inquest there were multiple state failures that could have prevented her death if her killer had been properly supervised and communication had been better.

AND if we longer accepted that violence was inevitable we might well not have to service so many in need.

What do I mean by this? Story of Abraham Bardu

Saved a girl from a violent assault on the Frampton Park Estate, Hackney in 2007

He knew the offenders and he still testified and then he and his mother were let down.

Move from their Hackney estate to another borough, but no priority offered

Abraham moved to Bristol / Gloucester at 16 on his own to do his A Levels

Changed his name

Stayed till he had got his MSc in sports science

Wanted to be with him mother and found a job in London and so returned.

Mother had finally moved but was still in Hackney

He was finally murdered in 2016 outside his home

No one has been charged with his death

The system failed him and his mother but also it failed us all.

So let’s keep fighting for change

· Trying the above information is not easy as data and stats take time to collate.

· The list of victims this month come from Counting Dead Women Twitter account and my own research. We have 7 victims

So let’s reflect on the following:

2 June 2024: Patsy Aust, 81, was found dead at a house in Bangor, County Down. Her brother, Jim Moore, 85, is charged with her murder.

9 June 2024: Chitsidzo Chinyanga, known as Veronica, 42, was taken to hospital following a disturbance at a house in West Lothian. She later died. Kasikai Chinyanga, 46, is charged with murder.

12 June - Tejaswini Kontham, 27, stabbed to death in Wembley by Keven Antonio Lourenco De Morais, 23 who also tried to stab another woman.

23 June – Rotherham – Joanne Ward, 53, Laurence Ward, 57, of the same address has been charged with her murder.

25 June –Hednesford, 22-year-old Lauren Evans and 24-year-old Daniel Duffield, were found dead together. No one else is sort for these deaths.

27 June – Unknown woman found dead in Riddrie, Glasgow and her death is treated as suspicious

27 June – 80 woman in Romsey, Hants found dead at home. A 65 man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

I’d also like to mention these three cases:

18 June - GUILTY: John David Scott, 35 pleaded guilty to the murder of Natasha Melendez, 32, in Lisburn, N.Ireland. Scott was arrested on 1 Apr 2020 for murder but was not interviewed until 2022. Natasha was beaten to death.