‘Use riot justice to save women from violence'

REPEAT abusers of women should be "stopped in their tracks" just like the recent rioters, through quick arrests and sentencing, a former victims commissioner says.

- Steph Spyro

Dame Vera Baird wants male violence against women and girls (MVAWG) to be put on the same footing as the mayhem that hit Britain this month.

Writing in the Express, she said: "MVAWG is almost always criminal and it is poorly and slowly dealt with by police and the wider criminal justice system, which therefore offers no deterrent.

"I have called for some cases of MVAWG - already in the system but log-jammed in the massive crown court queue left by the last government to be speeded through, as the riot charges were.

"As racist demonstrators were stopped in their tracks by quick arrests and speedy sentencing, misogynistic serial abusers of women should face a similar determined demonstration that MVAWG will bring them severe penal consequences."

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with the rioting and more than 500 charged. It followed the fatal stabbings of three girls at a Taylor Swiftthemed dance workshop in Southport.

Also last month BBC racing commentator John Hunt's wife Carol and daughters Hannah and Louise were killed in a crossbow attack at their home in Hertfordshire. And lone dog walker Anita Rose, 57, died four days after being found unconscious on a track in Suffolk.

Jess Eagelton, head of policy and public affairs at women's charity Refuge, said: "VAWG is dominating the news agenda this summer but sadly this is nothing new despite the police and Government referring to this issue importantly as an 'epidemic' and a 'strategic priority'. VAWG has been at emergency levels, unchecked and unnoticed, for a very long time.