'We tolerate lesser offending by men before they go on to murder girls and women'

29 September 2021, 17:57 | Updated: 29 September 2021, 18:03

By Tim Dodd

Society doesn't tolerate Wayne Couzens or the Yorkshire Ripper once they have murdered but does tolerate lesser offending by such men before they go on to murder women and girls, says Shelagh Fogarty.

It comes as the mother of Sarah Everard has said she is "incandescent with rage" at what happened to her daughter, saying "she spent the last hours on this earth with the very worst of humanity".

Shelagh said: "Really since the beginnings of the MeToo movement, I was a woman and a girl who thought I had lived outside of male violence.

"I grew up in a home that was safe, I went to schools that were safe.

"But when I stopped and thought about it, that wasn't entirely the cause.

"I was as caught up as anybody was in our over tolerance, our indulgence of this behaviour."

She continued: "We don't tolerate the Yorkshire ripper, we don't tolerate Wayne Couzens once they've murdered, but we do tolerate lesser offending by such men before they go on to murder girls and women.

"We laugh about the flasher, we laugh about the peeping Tom. Well the flasher and the peeping Tom and man leaving condoms through girl's letterboxes is the man who murdered Libby Squire. They're the same men... They will be murderers, some of them."