The murder of a 28-year-old teacher during a London park has reignited a national conversation over women’s safety, six months after the death of Sarah Everard, who was killed by a policeman , topped the United Kingdom’s political agenda.
Sabina Nessa, a grade school teacher, was killed every week ago on the evening of Citizenship Day while walking in Cator Park in Kidbrooke, a neighborhood within the capital’s southeastern Borough of Greenwich.
It is understood that she was on her thanks to meet a lover at a bar but a 10-minute walk off from her home on Astell Road when she was attacked at about 8:30pm, consistent with London’s Metropolitan Police Service (Met).
Her body was found by cops in Cator Park the subsequent afternoon, nearly 24 hours later, on the brink of an area community centre.
On Thursday, a 38-year-old man was arrested in London on suspicion of murder. He remains in custody.
Police have also released images of another man they want to talk to in reference to the case.
Officers have appealed for any witnesses or individuals with information of the incident to contact them.
“We know the community are rightly shocked by this murder – as are we – and that we are using every resource available to us to seek out the individual responsible,” Joe Garrity, the detective inspector leading the Met’s investigation, said during a statement.
‘Epidemic of violence’
As the Met’s probe continues, calls are growing for authorities to tackle what campaigners say is an “epidemic of violence towards women within the UK”.
Emma Kay, co-founder of WalkSafe, a free mobile app aimed toward safeguarding women publicly spaces, said many ladies are killed by men within the UK since March, when Everard’s murder by a Met officer shocked the state .
Everard was 33. Wayne Couzens, 48, has pleaded guilty to murdering her and can be sentenced on Michaelmas .
So far this year, a minimum of 108 women within the UK are killed by men, or in instances where a person is that the principal suspect, consistent with Counting Dead Women, a gaggle that tracks femicide within the country.
“Enough is enough,” Kay told Al Jazeera. “UK women are calling for action. We must be ready to walk home safely and live without violence in our own homes.”
Kay said “a police and court system that protects women” was needed, also as “concrete safety initiatives” like improved CCTV and a free or subsidised transport system.
Andrea Simon, director of the top Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said it had been “devastating” that tiny had been done to deal with male violence against women despite widespread demands for action after the Everard tragedy.
The criminal justice system was too slow in responding to violence against women, she said, and routinely fails to prosecute rape and domestic abuse cases.
She also said support services should be granted more funding.
“We must not risk viewing these murders as isolated incidents. Violence against women is so deeply normalised that ladies must constantly perform personal safety work – assessing our surroundings, researching the safest route, carrying keys in our hands and sharing our location with friends,” Simon told Al Jazeera.
“We need an approach that addresses the basis causes of male violence against women and therefore the attitudes that minimise and tolerate abuse.”
On Thursday, Khan involved officials to form misogyny a hate crime under UK law and criminalise harassment of girls publicly spaces.
Daby told Parliament on Wednesday that Nessa’s life had been brutally taken by “misogynist violence”.
“How many women’s lives must be stolen before this government takes serious action?” she said.
