It must be devastating for her family, and there has been a huge outcry across the country; this happens far too often to a woman walking on her own. It makes me very angry; by what right did that man think he was entitled to attack and kill her? I can remember reading in the news about so many similar murders over my lifetime and it’s just sickening. I remember my Mum being upset many years ago when talking about a young woman who disappeared the day she arrived in a new town, it turned out that she had been murdered by the taxi driver who picked her up at the station. And of course in Cambuslang nearly forty years ago a female taxi driver was murdered by her passenger, who had also killed a local nurse. The list goes on and on.
A lot of news items over the last few days have featured women saying that they are tired of people telling women that they should be careful of where they go or how they dress, as if they are partly responsible for attacks on them. I agree with this.
It’s not only women who are in danger. I always worried about the safety of my three sons when they were out late when they were younger. I still do. Men are also vulnerable to the kind of person that for some reason feels the right to kill someone. A man on his own or even in a group can often be seen as a challenge. I remember a very upsetting case in the 1980s of a young man walking home on his own in broad daylight and being slaughtered by a group of football supporters who didn’t even know him. They had machetes and had even severed the hand which he had held up to defend himself. And as with women, there are many similar instances of unacceptable violence by men to other men.
This week however the focus has quite rightly been about the murder of Sarah, and about the attitudes towards women of some men. It needs to change, the trouble is that I don’t know how this will happen.
Well said. Technology is helping, it was a bus dash cam that showed the killer.
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