A quarter of forces in England and Wales have yet to adopt essential safeguards, the Angiolini Inquiry finds, raising new concerns about women’s safety and stalled reform.
A new set of findings from the Angiolini Inquiry has confirmed that, four years after the murder of Sarah Everard, women are still being failed by the very institutions meant to protect them. One of the most troubling points is how many police forces still lack the most basic policies for handling sexual offences. According to the Inquiry, a quarter of forces in England and Wales have not put these core policies in place, even after repeated promises to improve women’s safety.
This figure sits alongside a wider pattern of failures since the murder of Sarah Everard. Part one of the Inquiry showed how Wayne Couzens was able to remain in policing for years despite a long history of alleged sexual offending, reports of indecent exposure and personal behaviour that should have prompted serious concern. The Inquiry found evidence of sexual misconduct stretching back almost two decades, including multiple claims of indecent exposure. These cases were either not investigated at all or investigated so poorly that they were never likely to be solved. Officers missed simple steps such as gathering proper witness statements or checking vehicle records, and the Inquiry says this was completely unacceptable.
The shortcomings ran deeper as vetting processes failed at several stages, allowing Couzens to move between forces without a full examination of his past or his financial problems. In one striking example, when the Metropolitan police reviewed his vetting after his arrest, a past indecent exposure allegation was still dismissed without proper consideration. The Inquiry stresses that vetting must look at all available information and that this oversight was a serious error.
Part one also highlighted the culture within policing. The report describes environments where sexist behaviour and degrading comments are brushed off as jokes. According to the Inquiry, this culture helps offenders hide in plain sight. It concludes that although Couzens’ crimes were extreme, they lie on the same continuum as the misogynistic attitudes still present in parts of policing today.
Part two of the Inquiry turns to the wider safety of women in public spaces. It shows that the true scale of sexually motivated crimes against women in public places is still unknown, because national data is incomplete. Despite this, surveys repeatedly show that women often feel unsafe and regularly change their behaviour to avoid risk. Many say they would be more likely to report incidents if they trusted that the police would take them seriously. The Inquiry’s own survey found that only around three in five women currently feel safe in public spaces.
While a lot of recent work has focused on improving lighting, increasing CCTV or offering women safety advice, the Inquiry says these measures cannot stop offending on their own. It calls for a clearer focus on identifying and disrupting the men who commit these crimes. Successful examples include Project Vigilant, where officers monitor the night time economy for predatory behaviour, and Operation Soteria, which shifts rape investigations away from scrutinising victims and towards examining the actions of offenders. These projects are praised as signs of progress, but the report says they need to be expanded more consistently and more quickly.
The Inquiry also warns that current efforts are too scattered. Different organisations and forces are running similar schemes without coordination, often relying on short term funding. This makes it harder to understand what works and prevents promising ideas from being adopted nationally. The report argues that prevention needs sustained government support and leadership, similar to the approach used in areas like counter terrorism, where long-term investment is standard even when results are harder to measure
When viewed together, both parts of the Inquiry show the scale of the problem. They point to basic failings in a number of police forces, including the absence of essential policies on sexual offences, and the continued lack of urgency in delivering promised reform. At the same time, many women still feel unsafe in public, and the systems designed to protect them remain inconsistent.
Women cannot be expected to trust policing until forces take sexual offences seriously, investigate them properly and tackle the cultures that allow harmful attitudes to thrive. Until then, the gap between what is promised and what is delivered will remain, and the fear that women experience in everyday public spaces will continue.
