Four years after the shocking murder of Sarah Everard by an off-duty police officer, a new independent inquiry has delivered a damning verdict on the state of women’s safety in public spaces across England and Wales. The second part of Lady Elish Angiolini’s investigation, released on December 2, 2025, finds that more than a quarter of police forces still lack basic policies for investigating sexual offences, and that crimes against women are not treated with the urgency afforded to other high-priority threats.
Sarah Everard’s death in March 2021 sent shockwaves through the UK. She was abducted, raped, and murdered by Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer who used his authority to falsely arrest her on her walk home in south London. Couzens had a troubling history: he had indecently exposed himself on two occasions in the months leading up to the attack, but red flags about his behavior went unheeded. According to the BBC, the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry, published in February 2024, concluded unequivocally that Couzens should never have been a police officer, calling for a "radical overhaul" of police recruitment and vetting.
The newly released report, as covered by Sky News and The Guardian, focuses on prevention—how to stop such tragedies before they occur. Lady Angiolini’s findings are stark: despite violence against women and girls being classified as a "national threat" by the Home Office in 2023, the response from police forces remains inconsistent and, in many cases, inadequate. As of September 2025, 26% of forces in England and Wales had not implemented even basic policies for investigating sexual offences, including indecent exposure. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) acknowledged that many of these forces were still reviewing or consulting on their policies, but Lady Angiolini warned that until such measures are universally adopted, violence against women "cannot credibly be called a 'national priority.'"
The report pulls no punches about the scale of the problem. In a public survey of 2,000 people conducted for the inquiry, 76% of women aged 18 to 24 reported feeling unsafe in public because of men’s actions or behavior. This echoes a 2021 UN Women UK study, which found that 71% of women in the UK had experienced some form of sexual harassment in public spaces—with that figure rising to a staggering 86% for younger women.
Lady Angiolini describes the lack of reliable national data on sexually motivated crimes against women as a "critical failure." Without consistent, comprehensive figures on offences such as rape, sexual assault, and indecent exposure, patterns of offending cannot be spotted and resources cannot be effectively targeted. "Prevention in this space remains just words," she writes. "Until this disparity is addressed, violence against women and girls cannot credibly be called a 'national priority.'"
The recommendations are sweeping and urgent. Among the 13 proposals: a national strategy to improve data collection and sharing; centrally managed, consistent public messaging on reporting crimes; mandated police procedures for investigating sexual offences; and educational programs to foster positive masculinity among men and boys. Lady Angiolini insists that tackling these crimes requires a "whole society response," involving not just police but government, educators, social services, and community organizations. "There is no better time to act than now. I want leaders to, quite simply, get a move on. There are lives at stake," she urges.
The report also highlights the importance of urban design and policing initiatives in making public spaces safer. It calls for the national rollout of Project Vigilant, pioneered by Thames Valley Police to target men who prey on women in the night-time economy, and for the expansion of Operation Soteria, a program aimed at improving police and Crown Prosecution Service responses to rape cases. The government is also urged to consider a "Good Samaritan law," requiring witnesses to intervene or call for help if they see someone in danger—a measure championed by Farah Naz, the aunt of Zara Aleena.
Zara Aleena’s case, referenced in the report, is another tragic example of systemic failure. Aleena, a 35-year-old law graduate, was killed in June 2022 as she walked home in east London, just nine days after her killer, Jordan McSweeney, was released from prison. 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."
The emotional toll on victims’ families is profound. Sarah Everard’s mother, Susan, shared her ongoing grief with the inquiry: "I go through a turmoil of emotions—sadness, rage, panic, guilt and numbness. After four years the shock of Sarah's death has diminished but we are left with an overwhelming sense of loss and of what might have been. Sarah will always be missing and I will always long for her." She added, "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."
Campaigners and victims’ families are united in their call for change. Mina Smallman, whose daughters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were murdered in 2020, said, "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." Andrea Simon, director of End Violence Against Women, put it bluntly: “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. Women cannot be expected to trust a system that resists naming misogyny and racism and continually fails to change.”
Police leaders and government officials have responded with promises of action. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Millichap of the NPCC said, "We are already working proactively to recognise, intervene and interrupt predatory behaviour in public spaces," pointing to joint operations and new initiatives. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the findings as "utterly unacceptable" and announced a new £13.1 million centre to strengthen the police response to these crimes, promising that the government would "carefully consider" all recommendations. She added, "I will do everything I can to ensure women and girls can live free from fear and harm—something Sarah was so cruelly denied."
The inquiry is far from over. Future reports will scrutinize police culture, misogyny, and the handling of officers with histories of sexual misconduct—such as former Met Police officer David Carrick, who was sentenced in February 2023 to 37 life sentences for a string of appalling offences.
For now, the message from campaigners, victims’ families, and Lady Angiolini herself is clear: the time for piecemeal efforts and empty promises is over. Only sustained, coordinated action at every level of society can hope to make public spaces safer for women and girls across the UK.
