The Met Police have now charged six people from London and Manchester for attending the vigil of Sarah Everard on Clapham Common on 13 March 2021.

Accounts from police officers, published in The Evening Standard, state they believed it had become an “anti-police protest”.

Everard was lured into a police car while walking home from a friend’s house on 3 March 2021 by then serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens, who later raped and murdered the 33-year-old. Couzens is now in jail for the abduction, rape and murder of Everard but is appealing his whole life sentence.

A vigil in Everard’s memory was planned by Reclaim These Streets, an organisation aiming to make the streets safe for women, but it was later called off after the police said it would be in breach of lockdown rules.

That didn’t stop hundreds of people flocking to Clapham Common to peacefully pay tribute to Everard and other women who have suffered violence by men across the UK.

Now, six attendees have been charged for allegedly breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules while attending the vigil with police claiming they feared being attacked. In the witness statement of one officer, he said the crowd chanted at them to “Go away murderers, arrest your own.”

This new information has been met with anger from women. Twitter user Shanine wrote: “This is a ridiculous attempt at divide and rule. Of course it was an anti-police protest: a police officer had disappeared and killed a woman on her way home…”

Met Police officers claim vigil for murdered Sarah Everard turned into an ‘anti-police’ protest as 6 people are charged