Continuing our series on the people behind the 2021 headlines, the 28-year-old detained at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard discusses violence against women, receiving death threats, and her new passion for activism
When Patsy Stevenson was arrested on the night of 13 March, at the vigil on Clapham Common for Sarah Everard, it was hard to believe what was happening: at the precise moment in which public faith in the police force most needed restoring, after the murder of Everard at the hands of a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens, video footage showed a young woman in the dark being pushed forcibly to the ground by officers and handcuffed. The manner of Stevenson’s arrest was condemned by politicians across parties – with the home secretary, Priti Patel, setting up an inquiry. On social media, the commentary was toxically mixed: Stevenson received abuse and death threats at the same time as being praised for speaking up with dignity, courage and transparency.
When she appears on Zoom, she looks pale, composed and serious-minded beneath her eyecatching red hair (was it this that made the police mistake this ordinary 28-year-old woman for a firebrand?). She is in a London flat with her dog, Lexy, who pops up on screen supportively beside her. Reports of her arrest focused on Stevenson’s terror when the police pinned her down, but what was going through her mind? “I was thinking: ‘Oh my God, I’m going to get kicked out of uni… I’ll never get a job.’” She is now repeating (“because of what happened”) a foundation year at Royal Holloway, University of London, studying physics. She goes on: “I’d never been in trouble with the police before. But my main thought was: this is what they’ve all been talking about. I used to think there was no smoke without fire.”
