ORGANISERS of a vigil for murdered Sarah Everard took legal action today after the police reversed a decision on allowing it to go ahead.

The Metropolitan Police initially said they would look into ways to make the vigil work amid the coronavirus lockdown but organisers then were told tomorrow’s Reclaim These Streets (RTS) event would not be permitted.

Reclaim These Streets demos planned in other parts of Britain also faced official discouragement, with Scotland’s Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman saying women should stay at home and light candles or make their voices heard on social media because of Covid restrictions.

RTS sought an order in the High Court today, challenging the force’s interpretations of Covid-19 restrictions when read against human rights law. It raised £30,000 to cover the legal costs within an hour of setting up a crowdfunding site asking the public to make donations on Thursday.

The hearing took place as police confirmed that the body found in a Kent woodland area on Wednesday was the missing 33-year-old.

A serving Metropolitan Police officer in his 40s remains in custody on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Ms Everard.

Scotland Yard is facing an investigation by the police watchdog into its handling of a separate allegation of indecent exposure against the arrested officer, who is in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, three days before Ms Everard went missing.

The vigil ban is the latest in a litany of clampdowns against protests. 

Earlier this week, a nurse was fined £10,000 for organising a protest over the poor NHS pay rise, while campaigners have accused police officers of using “intimidation tactics” against protesters demanding justice for Mohamud Hassan, who died after being released from police custody in January.

Downing Street said Prime Minister Boris Johnson “completely understands the strength of feeling” around Ms Everard’s case, but urged people to abide by coronavirus restrictions.

One of the vigil organisers, Anna Birley, said that plans began on Wednesday and the group had “proactively” contacted Lambeth Council and the Metropolitan Police.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Initially, we had feedback that they were looking at ways to navigate this, that they would be looking at how they could proportionately and appropriately provide community policing to the event.

“We were in conversation about how we could do that safely so that people could express their anger and their grief without putting themselves or others at risk.

“We then had an about-face mid-afternoon [on Thursday]. We were being put under increasing pressure that, individually, we would be at risk for doing so, but as would everybody who attended and all of the women across the country potentially who have been organising sister vigils in their own areas.”

Ms Birley said safety at the vigil had been a “priority from the get-go,” adding the location of Clapham Common was in part chosen because it is a “wide open space,” while organisers had emphasised wearing masks and the importance of social distancing.

She said: “We had QR codes so that people could do track and trace, and just really trying to work out how we can do this in a really safe way.”

In the statement tweeted on Thursday evening, RTS said that by “forcing us to cancel” the vigil, the police would be “silencing thousands of women like us who want to honour Sarah’s memory and stand up for our right to feel safe on our streets.”

A Metropolitan Police statement said they remain in discussion with the organisers about the event.

More than half of the 152 police officers who faced criminal investigations were convicted in the year to March 2020, according to the latest Home Office data for England and Wales.

The figures also show misconduct proceedings against police officers or staff were brought in 1,385 cases during the period, out of 2,242 complaints that were considered to involve misconduct or gross misconduct.