Second Report reveals critical need for a relentless focus on the perpetrators of these crimes, and a lack of coordination and grip for prevention activity

The Angiolini Inquiry’s second Report, calls for a fundamental shift in the focus of activity to prevent sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces. Chair Lady Elish Angiolini KC makes a clear statement: measures targeted at making spaces safer (such as better street lighting) and advising women on how to protect themselves (for instance, providing information on safe routes home) are important – but not enough.

Instead, the prevention focus must be squarely on identifying and targeting the predatory men who commit these crimes. Work to identify and intervene early when someone is showing predatory behaviour, and to investigate effectively and swiftly when an offence has taken place, needs to be combined and coordinated in a way it currently is not. Every opportunity must be taken to improve what we know about the patterns of behaviour of these perpetrators, and what will disrupt and change that behaviour. This is currently lacking.

Lady Elish expresses great concern that basic questions about the prevalence of these crimes cannot be answered and outlined key gaps in knowledge about how many women nationally report being the victim of sexually motivated crimes in public spaces. For example, strangers in public spaces in England and Wales last year?’. There is also limited data on sexual assault and indecent exposure. Lady Elish warns that, without this data being gathered and recorded consistently across forces, it cannot be analysed to spot patterns of offending, which amounts to a critical failure.

Lady Elish therefore calls for urgent, coordinated action to shift public attitudes, disrupt harm and create a culture that enables women to feel safer in public spaces.

The Report highlights a troubling lack of momentum, funding and ambition for prevention work in this area, as well as a lack of progress on previously accepted recommendations from Lady Elish’s Part 1 Report. Although Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) was categorised as a ‘national threat’ in 2023 (requiring police forces to coordinate their response and resources to tackle such crimes in line with other national threats), 26% of police forces have yet to implement basic policies for investigating sexual offences, including indecent exposure. Furthermore, the Part 1 Report recommended that those with convictions and/or cautions for sexual offences should be barred from policing. This has not yet been implemented. The Home Office has informed the Inquiry that it does intend to address this recommendation, but this will not be implemented until 2026.

Despite this, the Inquiry heard about many impressive and creative campaigns, programmes and other measures aimed at preventing sexually-motivated crimes against women in public. These come from across sectors, Government departments, charities and academia. This is encouraging; but there must be decisive action by Government to coordinate and boost these patches of positive prevention activity.

As a starting point, the Inquiry recommends immediate focus on and sustainable funding for two policing programmes aimed at preventing predators offending, and offenders reoffending, respectively: Project Vigilant and Operation Soteria. These measures are available now, and have proven success. Funding them properly is one way for Government and policing to show it is taking the safety of women in public spaces seriously.

Extracts from a longer press release at https://iipcv-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/tRMD0TBy-251201_Angiolini-Inquiry-Press-Notice-for-website.pdf

The full Report is at www.angiolini.inquiry@independent-inquiry.uk.

December 12, 2025