January 2025

 Vigil 6th Jan 2025

 

Hello and thank you for coming to the first vigil of 2025 and to the first vigil under our new banner of AWE – the Alliance for Women’s Equality.

Ironically without a banner…

I’m going to keep this fairly short because when we started 8 years ago I declared myself to be a fair-weather feminist and it is so very cold this evening.

 

I’m going to start by reading the list of the names of the women whose details we have been made of since we last met, who were killed by men

 

26 November 2024: Kristine Sparane, 37, was found dead at the home she shared with her children in Spalding, Lincolnshire. Brian Simpson, 64, has been charged with her murder.

 

26 November 2024: Alana Armstrong, 25, was killed in a crash whilst she was a passenger on an e-bike. The bike was pursued and rammed by a 4x4 vehicle. The driver Keaton Muldoon, 23, was charged with Alana’s murder and the attempted murder of the e-bike driver.

 

29 November 2024: Margaret Cunningham, 57, was found with stab wounds at a property in Surrey Quays. She died in hospital. Her older brother, Andrew Cunningham, 61, is charged with her murder.

 

10 December 2024: Margaret Hanson, a mother and grandmother aged 84, was found dead at her home in Galashiels, Scotland. Her husband, John Hanson, also 84, has been charged with her murder.

 

10 December 2024, Astra Sirapina, 62 was stabbed and killed at a house in Coventry. Arturs Putrasevics, 39, has been charged with her murder.

 

14 December 2024: Karen Cummings, 40, was found dead with serious injuries in a house in Banbridge, Northern Ireland. Glenn King, 32 and Kevin McGuigan Jr, 42, have been charged with murder.

24 December 2024: Mariann Borocz, 55, was last seen alive one December 14th Her body was found at a property in Bolton, Greater Manchester on 24th December. Christopher Barlow, 61, has been charged with her murder.

 

25 December 2024: Joanne Pearson, 38 and Teohna Grant, 24 were both stabbed to death at a flat in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. A 29-year-old man and a teenage boy were also seriously injured. The resident of the flat Jazwell Brown, 49 has been charged with double murder and double attempted murder.

 

As usual these are the most extreme cases of VAWG, and we know that the instances of less extreme cases are vastly more numerous, but we are committed to raising awareness of all VAWG and this is one way to do that.

I’m not sure what other ways AWE will choose to continue this, but I suspect we’ll find out more when we have our first meeting on Wednesday next week – the 15th.

I really hope you’ll come along with your thoughts and ideas, this is a non-hierarchical group, and everyone is welcome.

It’s also a non-political group but I hope, and optimistically suspect, that it’s going to be an extremely impactful and effective one.

 

I’d like to take you back for a moment to Karen Cummings murder on December 14th, in Banbridge, Northern Ireland. Later that week more than 600 people attended a vigil, with banners held up bearing the names of 25 women killed in Northern Ireland since 2020.

This was organised by Women’s Aid Down and Armagh, which is a charity covering two counties. The total population of those areas is just 745,000.

Now that we have restructured, we are not limited to a geographical area.

The population of Richmond Borough is only 200,000, but if we add Hounslow and Ealing we get to just over 850,000.

So… what I’m going to tell the meeting on Wednesday week is that I’m going to contact Women’s Aid Down and Armagh and ask them how they did what they did. And I’m going to reach out and learn from other organisations as well, and my goal will be to have 100s of people at the AWE vigils to end VAWG.

 

Thank you again for being here and I hope you will all come back for our next vigil on Monday the 3rd of February.

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