The killing of Ms. Everard, 33, has prompted soul-searching over violence against women in Britain. And the breaking up of a banned vigil in her memory has focused criticism on London’s police.
The mayor of London and the British cabinet minister responsible for policing called Sunday for an independent inquiry into how the city’s main police force broke up a vigil for Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old marketing executive whose killing has sparked a reckoning over violence against women. The demand for an investigation came after images of officers clashing with women at the event prompted a widespread outcry. The mayor, Sadiq Khan, said that “scenes arising from the policing of the vigil,” which had been banned under coronavirus restrictions, “were completely unacceptable,” and that he was “not satisfied” with explanations from the two top officers in the force, the Metropolitan Police. A spokesman for the Home Office, the government department that oversees policing, confirmed on Sunday that Priti Patel, the home secretary, had asked the Inspectorate of Constabulary, a government body that assesses police forces, for a report into what happened at the vigil. Mr. Khan said in a statement that he had sought a full inquiry from the same body, and that he was also asking another regulator, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, to investigate the actions of officers at the vigil.
