Patsy Stevenson: Challenging the police is terrifying – I know that first hand

When the protesters saw a police officer choking a woman at the Sarah Everard vigil in 2021, we didn’t hesitate – we rushed on to the bandstand to help. We grabbed at the officer’s arm. We shouted. We tried to pull her free. Instead of helping a woman in danger, other officers swarmed around us.

An officer grabbed me. He pulled me backwards, threw me to the floor and put me in cuffs.

And that’s when it happened. That’s when I realised the police weren’t at the vigil to protect the woman and girls protesting about police brutality. They were there to silence us.

I remember the shock of being overpowered so suddenly and the fear that filled me. Everything felt frantic and unreal. I remember the panic in my chest, the disbelief that this was happening, in public, at a vigil for a woman murdered by a police officer.

That moment changed my life forever. The sudden realisation that there had never been any intention to allow the vigil to happen. The message was clear: stay quiet, stay compliant, or be punished.

I was already wary of the police – who wouldn’t be, after hearing that a serving police officer had been charged with kidnapping and murdering a woman. But until that night, I hadn’t really seen them as a danger to me. I had grown up believing that you could turn to the police for protection. Even when they showed me, time and again, that they didn’t deserve my trust, I told myself I was probably overreacting. That night stripped away any remaining doubt. And I had the bruises to remind me. 

That feeling of safety had been shaped by white privilege. I hadn’t been targeted before, so I hadn’t been forced to see it. But people of colour don’t have that luxury. Many learn about police brutality at a young age and face it a lot more in their everyday lives.

Looking back, I’m glad that night became a moment of reckoning for many women in the UK. So many of us have been told to trust the police, to believe they are on our side. But only those of us who have reported crimes and not been believed, who have been victim-blamed, dismissed, or abused by the police, truly understand how isolating that experience is. Not only are you failed by the people who are supposed to protect you, you’re not even believed when you talk about that failure.

When women report abuse and violence and are dismissed or brushed aside, it feeds the dangerous narrative that it’s somehow our fault. Women like Nina Cresswell have stood firmly against that narrative and spoken out. I think that’s so brave. Challenging the police is terrifying – I know that first hand. It can take years just to get a response from them, and the process is exhausting. It can change your whole life.

Time and time again, the police protect abusive men and protect their own. They’re part of a criminal justice system that is misogynous, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist and fundamentally not fit for purpose. We need to be bolder and braver against institutions that fail to protect us – because silence only protects those in power.