Two young women are walking along the streets of Soho, Central London, on the last Friday evening before Christmas. Offices have closed for the holidays. The pubs are full. The streets busy.
‘Hello, darling,’ calls out a tall, rangy man of about 30 in trainers and streetwear.
Women are used to this kind of over-familiarity from strangers. But these women are in black combat trousers, tough black boots and stab vests. Their ‘duty belt’ holds equipment including handcuffs, a baton and a powerful pepper spray called Pava.
They are police officers – symbols of authority – and yet in the context of the streets, on a drunken Friday night, some men have issues respecting their power.
‘They face comments such as: “Nice handcuffs, I know what I could do with those,” ’ says Natasha Evans, Superintendent for Westminster. ‘The women on my team say it just feels relentless.’
The Met was the first force to allow officers to join the police part-time in 2019 – a move in part designed to encourage women to sign up. This summer, 18 per cent of Supt Evans’s West End town centre team, responsible for patrolling the theatre and club district at the heart of the capital, was female. The target is 25 per cent from this February.
However, there is a significant obstacle, namely the attitude towards them from some of the public.
Journalist Sally Williams goes out on the beat in London with Met police officers PC Henessy-Jones,left, and PC Mansoor, right, as they do a late night patrol around Soho
And it’s not just comments. Abuse can become physical too.
In September, Mark Weatherley, 43, was jailed for eight years for a violent and unprovoked attack on two female Met officers who’d been supporting a female victim at his house in south-east London. One PC was knocked unconscious, both were hit in the head and stamped on.
‘The level of hatred and violence directed towards the officers by Weatherley was deeply shocking and distressing,’ Detective Chief Superintendent Trevor Lawry said. Weatherley said the female PCs ‘deserved it’ and he would ‘do it again’.
Last month, 29-year-old Declan Diedrick of Harlow, Essex, was convicted of stabbing a female police officer in the face with a seven-inch kitchen knife in an attack that was described as like something ‘from a Scream film’.
Most famously, this summer, a 20-year-old student Mohammed Fahir Amaaz was convicted of viciously attacking two female police officers at Manchester Airport last year. In footage that went viral, Amaaz is seen repeatedly punching both women and knocking them to the ground.
And yet all discussions regarding misogyny and the way it affects female police officers must also reckon, of course, with what goes on inside the force too.
We are sitting in Charing Cross Police Station, one of the capital’s busiest and also the station at the centre of a 2022 investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the police watchdog, which uncovered sexist and misogynistic private group chats among male police officers.
One discussed hitting his girlfriend, for example, while others made jokes about rape. A year later, Baroness Casey described the Met as ‘institutionally sexist’ in her review of the internal culture of the capital’s police service, following the horrific 2021 rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, a serving Metropolitan police officer.
They are police officers – symbols of authority – and yet in the context of the streets, on a drunken Friday night, some men have issues respecting their power
But the biggest problem, says Supt Evans, is sexist comments from ‘going out on foot in the West End’.
If women PCs in the Met face a double whammy of internal and external misogyny, the external threat, she argues, is far greater. Supt Evans invites me to join a night shift and see for myself.
PC Mansoor, 25, and PC Hennessy-Jones, 22, have been friends for three-and-a-half years. They trained together at Hendon Police College, then worked with emergency response teams: PC Mansoor at Charing Cross; PC Hennessy-Jones at Hammersmith Police Station. Both have degrees in policing. They’ve been on foot patrols for two years.
They are motivated by the same desire: ‘I want to help people,’ says PC Hennessy-Jones. But they approach it in different ways. PC Hennessy-Jones, who is tall with an open face, strides along, nodding and smiling and greeting passers-by with a ready-to-assist-you tone. PC Mansoor is petite at just 5ft 1in, but is brave, attentive and fluent in police-speak.
‘That’s probably a Section 23 [Misuse of Drugs Act],’ she says of a wiry little toughie found in possession of cannabis in Leicester Square. Another patrol is there, but we walk by to check all is OK. ‘Or it could be a PND [Penalty Notices for Disorder],’ she adds. ‘It depends on his PNC [record on the Police National Computer].’
PC Hennessy-Jones’s parents are happy she’s in a job with prospects – but PC Mansoor’s mother worries about her daughter, whom she’d hoped might become a therapist or a lawyer. ‘When I said police officer, she was like: “What! Are you sure?” ’ says PC Mansoor, who lives with her mother, sister, brother and three cats.
The shift is from 9pm to 7am and the officers are dressed in hi-vis jackets with bowler hats and walkie-talkies for crucial updates from the control centre. They attach body cameras to their chest and we set off. The route is predetermined. Leicester Square until around midnight, then Soho, where some bars and clubs are open to 4am.
I ask them if they ever feel frightened before they go out?
‘It would be wrong to say that we don’t. We’re human, but that doesn’t stop us doing our jobs,’ says PC Hennessy-Jones.
If women PCs in the Met face a double whammy of internal and external misogyny, the external threat, Sally Williams argues, is far greater
Patrolling the streets and keeping us safe at night, it soon becomes clear, is both harrowing and essential. We walk past an upmarket Japanese cake shop, pubs, humming night-time streets. A sort of bottleneck has developed outside one bar. There are tuk tuks – three-wheeled ‘taxis’ – with flashing lights and blaring music. Blokes of all ages are striding ahead, hands in pockets. Girls are wearing sparkling smiles and towering heels.
And, all the while, a disembodied voice from the officers’ walkie-talkies provides the latest dramatic event: ‘A male is beating up a female in the park.’ ‘Potential burglary New Bond Street.’ ‘We’ve got a male rubbing himself.’
By 10.30pm, the officers have given directions to cashpoints, Tube stations, even where to buy a red rose.
‘You’ll be dealing with something really vital and someone will ask: “What time is the football on?”’ says PC Mansoor. They have knelt beside a woman throwing up, rescued a ‘lost child’ and attended to a balding old man stumbling down the street. ‘Take him home, love,’ shouts a young man. ‘That’s your f***ing job.’
The officers are unbelievably patient with drunks. ‘Right now people are happy,’ says PC Mansoor. ‘They haven’t been drinking for very long.’
But the generally benign party atmosphere is about to change dramatically. At 11pm, as we round the corner into Shaftesbury Avenue, we see a fire engine with flashing lights. A man is sitting on a makeshift stool looking dazed, a firefighter bent over him, another man standing and a woman with a bike. The world is full of different sorts of men. Some are decent until they start drinking. Many are decent even when drunk. Here, it transpires, are both types.
The woman, in her 40s with a job in television, was cycling home when a friend texted ‘an enormous piece of news’. She stopped outside a bubble tea shop on the avenue. ‘I was texting away: “Tell me more?!” she reports, ‘and some young guys came up and started really hassling me. “Can you give us a lift, love?” That kind of thing.’ Two men in their 30s stopped and said, ‘Are these guys bothering you?’ she says, adding that she replied: ‘Yes, actually, they are being a bit annoying.’ There was a hectic fight and the crack of a head against a metal grill. One of the ‘heroes’ was pushed off the pavement and fell into the road.
‘He fell straight on his head without using his hands to save himself,’ says a young nurse on holiday from Switzerland, who was hovering by the scene. Reaction times of intoxicated people can be significantly slower. She called for help and the fire engine turned up as it was nearby. The attackers ran off.
PCs Mansoor and Hennessy-Jones immediately take charge. They take a statement from the woman with the bike and the other ‘hero’. They try to comfort the man with concussion while waiting for an ambulance. ‘Please sit down,’ says PC Mansoor. ‘I’m worried that you lost consciousness. We need to ascertain if it’s ABH [actual bodily harm] or GBH [grievous bodily harm],’ she adds, looking round for CCTV cameras. The young men could be in deep trouble.
Later, in hospital, it’s discovered that he has two skull fractures and the offence is indeed GBH.
As the ambulance departs, we resume our patrol. Not long after, a man in a tracksuit and spiky black hair asks PC Hennessy-Jones for directions to a pub called O’Neill’s. She tells him, then gives him some security tips: how not to get robbed, where to carry his phone, how to react if a stranger comes up to him. The bar is a hotspot of mobile phone theft – as is the West End in general. Last year there were an average of 18 mobile phone thefts a day on Oxford Street alone.
Maintaining eye contact in such a way as to lock PC Hennessy-Jones into a hard stare, he says in a voice that is provocative and self-assured: ‘Do you know what my favourite thing is? A woman in uniform.’ He glances at his friends and repeats it, grinning.
They have a genuine vocation and try every day to make a difference, and yet the low-level abuse they suffer – not to mention the threat of serious violence – must surely take its toll
Suddenly PC Hennessy-Jones spots someone she suspects has just stolen a phone. He’s wearing a black puffer jacket and when we approach he starts to run. The pursuit through Chinatown lasts a few minutes and we eventually lose him. By now it’s midnight and we move into Soho. The vibe darkens further.
We squeeze through the crowds of drunk people joining other drunk people in the clubs. A young man in a white hoodie makes prolonged eye contact with PC Hennessy-Jones (PC Mansoor calls this the ‘prey-stare’).
‘Your face is too nice to be a police officer,’ he says, and repeats it three times. He will reappear about half an hour later and say the same thing. He is obsessed.
One ranting, inebriated couple need to be separated and are bundled into a taxi.
We pass a man standing on the corner with two friends. ‘Hold on!’ he shouts. ‘I saw two young lady officers running about half an hour ago. It was you two!’ He laughs. He must have seen the chase, but he finds the whole idea comical. ‘Love you, baby!’
‘I guarantee he would never say that to a male of six-foot-two,’ says PC Hennessy-Jones.
Crudely, some men sexualise the uniform and for some reason are unable to recognise the boundary between their fantasy and what is real. ‘They think of you as an object, basically,’ says PC Mansoor.
She, in particular, is for ever having men loom over her in an intimidating way. ‘They usually aim to interact with her because they think she’s an easier target,’ says PC Hennessy-Jones. PC Mansoor explains: ‘They either try to scare you, or they go completely the other way – “Oh, you’re beautiful, you’ll let me off.” ’
The women don’t have the safety of a patrol car. Their job is to dive in, deal with dicey situations and make them safer. They have to be seen to be calm, despite the sexist abuse. ‘Because we’re in uniform we can’t say much,’ says PC Mansoor. ‘Obviously, in your head you want to say everything under the sun. Sometimes I do say: “That’s not very nice. Don’t say things like that.”’
The women do, however, have the law at their fingertips. Challenge the comment, and if it continues, arrest him, is Supt Evans’ advice. Although she admits that if every man who’s ever spoken to a female officer in the wrong way was dragged into the police station, the system would be clogged for months.
Which comments have you found most offensive? I ask PC Hennessy-Jones. ‘Do you know, I get rid of them from my mind straight away,’ she says. ‘They’re not important and it happens so often. I can’t hold on to them because then it would affect me. So I just let it go and move on.’
By now, it’s 1.30am. One of the walkie-talkies crackles to life: ‘A female is saying she was held in the toilets by a male and he wouldn’t let her out.’
PCs Mansoor and Hennessy-Jones are due a break, however, so leave it to another patrol.
As we say goodbye, I am left feeling assaulted by all the noise and chaos. And I am in awe of these young women and their courage.
They have a genuine vocation and try every day to make a difference, and yet the low-level abuse they suffer – not to mention the threat of serious violence – must surely take its toll. One thing’s for sure – they are far bigger people than the little men on the streets who try to cut them down.
