Sarah Everard: Met Police loses appeal over vigilon April 11, 2022 at 4:34 pm

The Met Police has lost its High Court appeal against a ruling that it breached the rights of the organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard.

Two High Court judges dismissed part of the Met’s case as “hopeless attempts to challenge reasoned factual conclusions” over the Reclaim These Streets event.

The group cancelled its planned vigil after the Met said it would be in breach of lockdown restrictions.

An unofficial gathering went ahead for the murdered marketing executive.

Dismissing the Met’s appeal, Lord Justice Warby and Mr Justice Holgate said its lawyers must have misread the original judgment before launching the action.

They said of the original ruling: “The court applied and followed principles laid down by the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.

“We do not believe there is a need for any further or more authoritative guidance for the purposes of lawful policing of protest in such cases.”

The judges added: “It is not arguable that we erred in principle and see no other reason to believe that the Court of Appeal would be prepared to adopt a different factual analysis.”

A Reclaim These Streets spokesperson said the decision was a “victory for women” and the case “exposes the Met’s total disregard for women’s human rights to assembly and expression”.

They added: “The decisions and actions by the Met Police in the run-up to the planned vigil for Sarah Everard were unlawful, and the judgment sets a powerful precedent for protest rights.”

The judgment should “reverberate widely”, the spokesperson said, particularly in light of new powers to curb protests set out in the Police, Courts, Crime and Sentencing Bill, which was passed by MPs earlier this year.

Ms Everard, 33, vanished as she walked home in Clapham, south London, on 3 March. Her body was found a week later in woodland near Ashford, Kent.

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