About twenty local women and men chose to dedicate their daily exercise in Cross Flatts Park, Beeston to the memory of Sarah Everard on Saturday.
Sarah Everard was abducted and murdered whilst walking home on Wednesday 3 March. Her death has highlighted the danger and abuse women and girls suffer on a daily basis on our streets.
The ‘love lock’ tree in Cross Flatts Park was adorned with ribbons, placards, flowers and candles by walkers who wore masks and maintained strict social distancing at all times. Two PCSOs kept an eye on proceedings, but there was no need for them to intervene.
Some of the placards read:
“RIP Sarah Everard and 118 women murdered by men during lockdown”
“Reclaim The Streets. A vigil for all women threatened on our streets.”
“We aren’t safe anywhere”
The area around the Watsonian Pavilion has become a rallying point in times of crisis, since the Peace Tree was planted in the Millennium Garden on the first anniversary of the London bombings. Other protests have followed the fire-bombing of a mosque and the gurdwara (Sikh temple) in 2018; and in support of Black Lives Matter last summer.
Well done.. All the people were like it says not near each other (dogs decided it didn’t apply to them though) and wearing mask’s Two police were just doing the rounds. Nice tribute to a very sad situation.
Every day Leeds City Council put the women and girls of Beeston and Holbeck at risk of kerbcrawling and rape by perverts coming to the area to buy sex from trafficked, groomed, drugged and exploited prostituted women encouraged to work in and around Holbeck!! I have been kerbcrawled by sex hungry punters so many times walking from Beeston to and from work in the city, as have many female residents, and I constantly witness women under the control of pimps and dealers get forced into going with men for the profit of their keepers! Lessons will be learned from what’s happened to poor Sarah 200 miles away in London, but for petes sake, Leeds City Council and local councillors need to GET THEIR OWN HOUSE IN ORDER and liberate local women, girls & prostituted women from tolerated misogyny and male violence in their own streets first!! STOP men buying women from streets in south Leeds and putting the whole community at risk!!
Myself and neighbours lit candles on our doorsteps in memory of Sarah , so sad