Campaigners need to be careful how they protest after Sarah Everard’s death

In the days after Sarah Everard’s disappearance, the tragedy focused on a missing woman; a Durham graduate who had studied Geography, worked as a marketing executive and whose family described her as bright and beautiful. We collectively wished for the safe return of Everard to her family.

As the details of the case were revealed, the issue took on a broader concern for the safety of women on our streets. When the arrest of police officer Wayne Couzens occurred, her death and disappearance became tinged with demand for police reform. And as her case captured the attention and grief of social media, individual fears, experiences, causes and agendas became projected onto her disappearance and death.

Then, on Saturday the situation worsened for Sarah’s friends and family. A vigil aimed to remember Sarah and ‘reclaim the streets’ as safe spaces for women ended in police intervention. The police presence was justified as a response to the Covid restrictions, which the vigil technically breached, but after a year of Zoom funerals and pent up emotion, the innate human desire to grieve collectively after a despicable tragedy should have been anticipated and prepared for.

Whilst we speculate on what happened on Clapham Common, and bicker over different perspectives on whether it was a protest or vigil, Sarah’s friends and family, in the depths of their grief, were suddenly confronted with pictures and footage of policemen restraining young women, referred to or presented next to Sarah’s name. How awful it must have been for the family to see those images. How layered, complex and surreal their grief must be.

Sadly, we live in a world where tragedy is often the catalyst for change. The anger and empathy around Sarah’s death has presented renewed energy to the campaign to end violence against women. With research finding 97% of women in the UK have been sexually harassed, it is energy that is desperately needed. The desire for a tragic event to lead to any kind of positive legacy is a well-known coping mechanism. Just this week Sarah’s aunt told The Sun, “I hope Sarah’s death can bring about some positive change”.

Yet online, the desire to attach her death to a cause has in many ways decentred Sarah from what happened. Twitter’s compression mechanism turned something so emotional and exposing of the ugliest side of humanity into discourse within a matter of days. The mixture of emotion and pull to online activism meant a gaping absence of the word “alleged” in Tweets about the police officer accused of Sarah’s murder. Tempting any chance of mistrial due to contempt of court would do nothing but cause further anguish for Sarah’s friends and family. To watch as the devastation of your loved one’s life being taken away mutates into headlines, protest, debates about sexism and civil freedoms must feel like spinning out of control and having no way to stop it.

It is not untrue to say what happened to Sarah could have happened to any young woman; there is currently no reason to believe her murder was anything but random and opportunistic. But when weighing into this discourse I think it is important to remember, it wasn’t anyone; it was Sarah. And it is her friends and family who are currently grieving.

Five days on from the vigil and Clapham Common is still strewn with hundreds of flowers, notes and candles. Approaching the bandstand you can smell the flowers in the air, and groups of people, young, old, male and female, walk slowly across the common with more bouquets to lay. One note reads, “thinking of Sarah’s mum on Mother’s Day”, and the emotional complexity of a child’s death triggering a movement, no matter how necessary or well-meaning, becomes gut-wrenchingly clear.

No one can speak to whether Sarah would have wanted her death to be politicised: she isn’t a martyr and she did not die for a cause. Sarah was an innocent young woman, unexpectedly murdered as she walked home. Making the world a better, safer place in her name is in no-way a poor-intentioned plan but when taking to social media in the wake of tragedy, we must choose our words carefully and leave room for those who loved Sarah to grieve privately too.