Five Years After Sarah Everard's Murder: The Unchanged Reality for Women Walking Home
Five years ago, the haunting phrase "She was just walking home" appeared on cardboard placards among floral tributes at Clapham Common. This became the rallying cry following the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, who was abducted by a serving Metropolitan Police officer while walking home from a friend's house in south London on March 3, 2021.
Sarah's tragic death prompted hundreds of women, including the Princess of Wales, to gather at Clapham Common in tribute. In the subsequent weeks, countless calls emerged for policing reforms to enhance women's safety. Yet, half a decade later, many women still cannot walk home with confidence that they will reach their front door unharmed.
Liv Nevill's Terrifying Encounter
Liv Nevill, now 27, watched Sarah's story unfold on news broadcasts from her family home when she was 22. She recalls feeling "angry and upset" at the betrayal of trust by a police officer. "At the time I thought, this could literally be me, and that's really scary," Liv tells Metro.
Then, on February 8 at 6pm, Liv was walking home in central London after visiting a friend when a man followed her and threatened her with sexual assault. "All I could think was why have I been the one that's chosen and targeted," Liv says. "My mind went into full-on panic mode... I froze."
She sought safety in her local Co-op supermarket, but the man waited outside. After informing staff she was being followed, Liv claims the man entered the store and threatened her with sexual violence. "I ran to the back of the shop, but I could see he was looking for me between the aisles, shouting 'I need to find her'," the influencer recalls.
After several minutes, the man left the shop, but a male employee confirmed he was still waiting down the street. Approximately ten minutes later, he departed on a bus. A 30-year-old woman who witnessed the incident walked Liv all the way home.
"When I shut my front door, my whole body just crashed," Liv says. "I was processing what just happened, I was really emotional... really scared."
Police Response and Viral Video Impact
The following day, Liv obtained CCTV footage of the incident and reported it to the Metropolitan Police. "I reported the incident, I said 'I can get the CCTV, this is exactly what happened' and they said they'd be in contact if they wanted it," Liv sighs. "It felt like 'we're really sorry this happened to you, but not much else is going to be done'."
Liv expressed frustration that the police didn't immediately request the CCTV footage, saying, "It's insane to me that that man is probably going around doing the same to other women, and they didn't say 'yes, can we have the CCTV'. Surely you'd want to see if they're a repeat offender. It made me feel invalidated."
However, after Liv posted a viral video detailing her experience and the police response, the Met's Instagram account commented asking for her case reference number to address her report. "Suddenly it's a reputation thing," Liv observes. "Why has it taken a viral video for that to happen? This incident confirmed my worst fears. I wouldn't call the police if something like this happened again because I feel like I'd have the same experience, which is awful."
Reclaim These Streets and Police Accountability
When Sarah Everard was murdered, Jamie Klingler founded Reclaim These Streets, a women's safety campaigning group. For Jamie, Sarah's death was "the day the blinders came off."
"I'd always thought the police had our best interests at heart... but with Sarah it uncovered at every level, the lengths people will go to not to be accountable, not to make streets safer, and to get things off the front pages, rather than implement change," Jamie tells Metro.
Jamie recalls watching footage of Sarah leaving a Sainsbury's in a bright jumper, calling her boyfriend to say she was on her way home. "She was on a busy street. She was doing all the right things but still ended up where she ended up because a man chose to put her there."
After tweeting about organizing a vigil for Sarah—which was ultimately banned by the Met Police—Jamie and her co-founders took the force to court for disrupting their right to pay respects. "The lengths they would go to to silence us for having a moment of silence for somebody one of them had killed was just gobsmacking," Jamie adds.
When a vigil did occur, police arrested women, sparking public uproar. Nearly a year later, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick was forced to step down.
Police Reforms and Ongoing Challenges
Current Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who assumed the position in 2021, states the force has implemented changes. "We have undertaken the biggest integrity reset UK policing has ever seen, doubling vetting failure rates and removed 1500 officers and staff in three years," he said in a public statement on the anniversary of Sarah's death.
He added: "This tragic case also brought into sharp focus the need for a national reset in how policing, and society more widely, prioritises tackling violence against women and girls."
This "reset" included Operation Soteria, launched to transform police responses to rape and serious sexual assault investigations. The Met claims this has doubled the number of people arrested and charged with sexual offences since 2022, though this still represents a rate of just 9.4%.
Despite some progress, the government has declined to legislate misogyny as a hate crime—a call rejected by Boris Johnson following Sarah's murder. Statistics remain alarming: in the year ending March 2025, 155 women were murdered in England and Wales, roughly one every 2.3 days. These figures are strikingly similar to the at least 147 women killed by 144 men in 2021, according to the Femicide Census.
A 2024 study by women's charity Refuge found 53% of women believed police had made not much or no progress in addressing sexism and misogyny among officers in the prior year. A quarter of women reported decreased trust in police to handle violence against women and girls during that period.
Internal Police Culture Concerns
Issy Vine, a former police call-handler, believes a culture of silence persists within the Met. In 2023, she claims a Met Police colleague followed her after work. Earlier that day, while sitting next to him for the first time, she says he called a rape victim a slut, referred to Clapham Common as "Sarah Everard territory," and made racist remarks.
"He'd said all these weird things and comments throughout the day that were so shocking," Issy, 31, tells Metro. "With one of the comments he made, I gained a bit of confidence and said 'no, that's disgusting, you shouldn't be racist', and I could see in his eyes, he switched. He was really angry I'd challenged him on it."
After her shift ended at 11pm, Issy waited 15 minutes so her colleague would leave first. However, outside he sat at the bus stop opposite. When her bus arrived, she says he shouted asking when it was coming, then boarded after her, sitting next to her despite living in the opposite direction. He allegedly stated, "I'm going to come your way tonight."
Issy claims he followed her to her Tube station before she jumped onto the platform as doors closed to lose him. "It was so bizarre and I felt so uncomfortable," she says.
The next day, she reported him at work, and he was dismissed for gross misconduct in November 2023. However, after six months, he was reinstated in a different centre. "I'd been so proud they got rid of him... and then they said he was back and everything shattered," she recalls. "I went numb and tears were streaming down my face."
Issy claims other colleagues have since told her this man has a reputation for being "creepy." One dispatcher allegedly warned female staff not to sit next to him, and he reportedly emailed a female police officer insisting he would take her on a date despite her refusal.
Ultimately, Issy says she wouldn't seek police help again if needed, feeling that "victims are scrutinised and torn apart." "I think it's down to a lot of ingrained misogyny and sexism and that's why women aren't believed, but we have to keep shouting," she adds. "We have to embarrass these institutions and then they'll do something."
Systemic Issues and Future Demands
In March 2023, Baroness Louise Casey's report, commissioned after Sarah Everard's murder, concluded the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist, sexist, and homophobic.
Activist Jamie Klingler argues that to immediately improve women's safety, police must treat indecent exposure as a "gateway to escalating sex crimes" and "fast-track police criminal activity through the system" rather than allowing it to take years.
"We're five years on and I'm still doing one or two appearances a week saying men need to stop killing us," she says. "There hasn't been the watershed moment we all believed there would be, and there should've been."
As London marks five years since Sarah Everard's murder, women continue to share stories of fear, following, and threats while walking home—highlighting persistent safety concerns and calling for meaningful, systemic change in policing and societal attitudes toward violence against women.
