Jamie Klingler, left, with campaigners who won a High Court case defending the right to peaceful protest

A CO-FOUNDER of the Reclaim These Streets campaign group says she still does not believe the police have learned from the horrific cases involving their own officers.

Jamie Klingler, who lives in Camden Town, said: “The police just dig their heels in.”

Reclaim These Streets organised the vigil for Sarah Everard on Clapham Common in 2021, only to see the Met demand it not go-ahead, citing Covid. Pictures from a gathering that happened anyway showed women being held on the ground in handcuffs.

Wayne Couzens had been a serving police officer when he raped and murdered Ms Everard after stopping her as she made her way home from a night out. This week, he was sentenced to 19 months in prison on top of his life sentence for indecently exposing himself in Kent, in a woodland and again at a McDonald’s, just days before Ms Everard’s murder.

The employee who reported the incident said that if action had been taken when the crime was reported “we could have saved Sarah”. Police have also faced questions over how freely misogynistic messages were shared by officers at Charing Cross Police Station.

Then came the case of David Carrick, a senior officer, who was revealed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders and jailed for life this year.

“They haven’t learned from Child Q, they haven’t learned from any of their dealings with Reclaim These Streets,” Ms Klingler told the New Journal this week. “They just haven’t learned at all. I had some hope that Rowley, by having some acknowledgement that reform was needed, would be positive, but that’s all gone again.”

Ms Klingler was referring to Sir Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner appointed to replace Dame Cressida Dick last year. His predecessor had been asked to step down by London Mayor Sadiq Khan after the series of scandals. “Like many, I wish Wayne Couzens had been arrested for these offences before he went on to rape and murder Sarah Everard,” Sir Mark said this week. “We could have done more, we need to do more, and we will do more.”

In November, the Met announced a new hotline to report police officers for abusive behaviour, including sexual violence and domestic violence.

But in January, Sir Mark warned he does not have the power to sack offending officers.  “We have some very worrying cases with officers who’ve committed criminality whilst police officers and yet I’m not allowed to sack them […] It’s crazy,” he said in a BBC radio interview.

Sir Mark Rowley

Ms Klingler feels that the new hotline is not an adequate response.

“All they’re doing there is PR,” she said. “If you’re not getting rid of the officers, then what’s the point of reporting them? What’s the point in investigating them? What’s the point of wasting that money and having them still have vulnerable women attached to them? “I’m out of hope. Every interview I used to give, I tried to leave it on ‘the children are our future,’ but I have nothing.”

She added: “There is no way that I don’t see seven more of these cases. David Carrick is the most prolific sex pest in the police until the next one, which might be next week, might be next year, who knows?” Ms Klingler and Reclaim These Streets won a legal case surrounding the Sarah Everard vigil when the High Court ruled the Met did breach their human right to a peaceful protest.

The vigil was officially called off, but women still gathered to pay their respects to Ms Everard. Ms Klingler feels that while the national debate about violence against women has changed, the institutions that are supposed to protect women have not.

“It’s coming up to the anniversary [of Sarah Everard’s death],” she said.

“Looking back at the last two years of being told by everybody and their brother that it was going to change everything and knowing that it hasn’t changed anything is really hard.” She added: “Knowing that misogyny is still not classified as a hate crime, and knowing that domestic violence doesn’t matter to the police – it’s really hard.” The lack of institutional change means Ms Klingler is calling for an escalation.

“My character arc has gone from ‘I’m known for a vigil’ to ‘I want to riot’ because vigils give somewhere for the media to take a picture and politicians just show up, and nothing else happens,” said Ms Klingler. “If I die I want a f**king riot. Nothing has made us demonstrably safer. Nothing has changed. The watershed moment hasn’t happened. They don’t care about us until we’re dead.”

She added: “Men, you need to sort it. You owe it to us. We’ve carried the burden for too long. We’ve changed supermarket aisles, we’ve moved jobs, we’ve moved homes. “We’ve made less of ourselves. We’ve paid the tax of taking Ubers home every night. We’ve made ourselves smaller. Take it off of us – you’ll have better consensual relationships, you’ll have better friendships.

“I know you know the people that you don’t want your daughter with in a taxi, and if that’s your access point for empathy, fine. Take it from us. I’m tired.”