On December 2, 2025, the second part of the Angiolini Inquiry report was released, casting a harsh spotlight on the persistent dangers women face in public spaces across the UK—and the systemic failings that allow those dangers to fester. The independent inquiry, led by Lady Elish Angiolini, was launched in the wake of the shocking murder of Sarah Everard by off-duty police officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021. Four years on, the pain and outrage remain raw, both for Everard's family and for the many women who still feel unsafe on Britain’s streets.
Sarah Everard’s mother, Susan Everard, spoke publicly about her unrelenting grief, describing the emotional turmoil she endures every day. In a statement included in the inquiry, she wrote, “All the happy, ordinary things of life have been stolen from Sarah and from us—there will be no wedding, no grandchildren, no family celebrations with everyone there. Sarah will always be missing and I will always long for her.” She continued, “I am not yet at the point where happy memories of Sarah come to the fore. When I think of her, I can’t get past the horror of her last hours. I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured.” According to BBC, Susan’s words have resonated with countless families who have lost loved ones to violence, forming what she described as “a sad bond with other bereaved parents.”
The inquiry’s findings are stark. As reported by Sky News, Lady Angiolini found that sexually motivated crimes against women in public do not receive the same urgent response as other high-priority offences. Despite the Home Office labeling violence against women and girls as a “national threat” in its 2023 policing strategy, the reality on the ground remains “insufficient and inconsistent” across police forces. The report revealed that 26% of police forces still lack even basic sex offence policies—a gap that leaves victims vulnerable and perpetrators unchecked.
Wayne Couzens, the former Metropolitan Police officer who abducted, raped, and murdered Sarah Everard, had a troubling history that went ignored. In the months leading up to the attack, Couzens had indecently exposed himself on two occasions. Yet, as the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry found in February 2024, major red flags about Couzens were “repeatedly ignored” by police vetting and investigations. Lady Angiolini’s earlier recommendation—that anyone with convictions or cautions for sexual offences should be barred from policing—still had not been implemented as of the latest report.
The new report, the first of two in the inquiry’s second phase, focuses on preventing sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces. Lady Angiolini issued 13 recommendations, calling for better national data collection and sharing, more consistent and targeted public messaging, and a coordinated information and intervention program for men and boys. This program, she suggested, should be managed jointly by the departments of education, social care, and the Home Office to help foster a culture of positive masculinity. She also urged the Home Secretary to mandate specific investigative procedures for police forces handling sexual offences.
But the problem, Lady Angiolini argued, is bigger than policing alone. “Prevention in this space remains just words. Until this disparity is addressed, violence against women and girls cannot credibly be called a ‘national priority’,” she stated. She stressed that sexually motivated crimes against women are a “whole society issue” that demands a coordinated response from government, police, and other agencies. “There is no better time to act than now. I want leaders to, quite simply, get a move on. There are lives at stake.”
One of the most damning findings is the lack of reliable data. Lady Angiolini called it a “critical failure” that information on sexually motivated crimes in public spaces is “difficult to obtain, patchy and incomplete.” This data gap, she warned, hinders efforts to understand and tackle the problem effectively. The inquiry’s public survey of 2,000 people found that 76% of women aged 18 to 24 felt unsafe in public due to men’s behavior—echoing a 2021 UN Women UK study that found 71% of UK women had experienced sexual harassment in public, with the figure rising to 86% among younger women.
The report also made clear that there is “not one silver bullet.” Instead, Lady Angiolini called for “long-term commitment, cross-party agreement and a steady course in preventing these crimes—through education, thorough investigations and swift arrests—always with an unswerving focus on the perpetrators.”
The consequences of systemic failure have been devastating. Zara Aleena, a 35-year-old law graduate, was killed on June 26, 2022, by Jordan McSweeney, who had been released from prison just nine days earlier. Her aunt, Farah Naz, told Sky News, “My niece, Zara Aleena, was walking home. That is all she was doing. Her death, like Sarah’s, was preventable. It occurred because warnings were missed, risks were overlooked, and systems intended to safeguard the public did not function as they should. Zara’s case reflects the wider patterns identified so clearly in this report: systemic failure rather than isolated tragedy.”
Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered in 2020, echoed the call for a national approach. She pointed out glaring holes in police vetting and data collection, highlighting that outdated equipment and funding issues hamper police efforts. “This cannot be solved by the police alone. We need a whole national approach to dealing with this issue. And it includes education, mental health, the police. Every level of service that we have needs to be involved in this.”
Advocates like Andrea Simon, director of End Violence Against Women, expressed deep concern about the slow pace of reform. “It is deeply concerning that, nearly two years on, policing has still not implemented basic reforms such as a ban on officers with sexual offence histories,” she said. “Women cannot be expected to trust a system that resists naming misogyny and racism and continually fails to change.”
Some steps are being taken. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood responded to the report by announcing a new £13.1 million center to strengthen the police response to these crimes. “This is utterly unacceptable and must change,” she said, adding that the government would “carefully” consider the inquiry’s recommendations. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Millichap, director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection, noted that the center is already working “proactively to recognise, intervene and interrupt predatory behaviour in public spaces.”
Yet, as the inquiry’s findings make clear, much more remains to be done. The Everard family, in a statement after the report’s release, said, “Sarah is always in our thoughts, of course, and we feel the inquiry continues to honour her memory. So too does it speak for all women who have been the victim of sexually motivated crimes in a public space and all those at risk.”
The next phase of the Angiolini Inquiry will examine police culture and the risk of recurring failures, with a third phase set to investigate the crimes of David Carrick, another former Metropolitan Police officer recently sentenced for a string of sexual offences. As Susan Everard’s words remind us, the cost of inaction is measured not just in statistics, but in the lives forever changed—and the futures stolen—from women like Sarah Everard and Zara Aleena.
