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A vigil planned to commemorate Sarah Everard has been cancelled, organisers have said.
Organisers from Reclaim These Streets said: “Update: We are sorry to confirm that our Clapham vigil scheduled for tonight is cancelled.”
They added: “Instead, we are fundraising £320,000 for women’s causes: £10K for every proposed fine for the 32 vigils originallyscheduled.”
A High Court judge on Friday refused to intervene in a legal battle between organisers of vigils, and the Metropolitan Police.
Vigil organisers pointed to lack of “constructive engagement from the police.”
“Our plan was to hold a short gathering on Clapham Common, centred around a minute of silence to remember Sarah Everard and all women lost to violence,” they said in a statement on Saturday morning.
“In light of the lack of constructive engagement from the Metropolitan Police, we were forced to cancel this event.”
Tom Hickman QC, representing Reclaim These Streets, urged the High Court to make a declaration that would “require the police to think again about whether or not this demonstration is in fact a legitimate exerciseof [human] rights of those participating in it”.
Mr Hickman said coronavirus laws required people to have a“reasonable excuse” to gather in public, asking: “What could be more reasonablethan exercising your right to protest?”
George Thomas, representing the Metropolitan Police, said that they had not implemented a “blanket ban” on protests, but that they had discretion on how to respond to specific planned events.
“The Metropolitan Police says that this is very clearly not an event that the regulations, on the face of it, permit and it is an event where it would plainly be proportionate for the police to impose restrictions on it,” Mr Thomas told the court.
Metropolitan police officer Wayne Couzens has been charged with Everard’s murder.
The 33-year-old marketing executive was walking home last Wednesday evening when she disappeared.
Mr Couzens is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Saturday.
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