The mayor, social influencers and survivors come together to take action.
The community came together on the 28th of November at Manchester Met’s student union to take action on safety in Manchester, especially after dark. After an email to the Union regarding our campaign to raise awareness around the issue, a panel discussion was soon set up welcoming Manchester university unions, mayor Andy Burnham and Sacha Lord, co-creator of the Parklife festival and The Warehouse Project as well as a Night Time Economy Adviser for Greater Manchester.
The evening was filled with emotions with personal stories and the overall defeat of being in fear all the time. An audience member said: “A year ago, I was mugged. For the second time. The second time in six weeks.” Andy Burnham made it clear it is time for change and is was solely here to listen to what the audience had to say, and said: “We want you to stay in this city. We want to look after you whilst you’re here.” He also suggested that universities should collaborate on a reporting service, to get ‘The full picture’ of crime in student areas like Rusholme and Fallowfield.
An honorary guest to many people who felt like a victim of terror and crime was Figen Murray, mother of Martyn Hett who died in the 2017 Manchester attack. After her son’s death, she felt like she couldn’t carry on with life but needed to be there for the rest of her family, so she quit her career as a psychiatrist and did a Masters in Anti-Terrorism at UCLan.
“I’m here because I’m campaigning to go to a lot of secondary schools and talk to young people on radicalisation and dangers to look out for.” Murray said that she’s an activist. She wants to campaign to change the government’s decision on securing places such as the Arena, football stadiums and places alike on a voluntary basis. She added: “I want it to be changed to be a legal requirement, [so] they have to check bags and detect for safety measures and have a terrorist action plans in place.”
She has been inspired by her experience at her daughter’s university in Nottingham and felt that Manchester may benefit from it. She said “There was a group of post-grad students and lecturers that go on a remote basis, walk around the town centre in the evenings where the students hang out. Any drunk students; they would help. If some girl is really drunk, they make sure she gets home and that’s she’s okay.”
Murray’s support for student safety comes from the regularity of harmful acts in the culture we live in. She emphasises the irresponsibility that scarred someone’s life because of letting a flare off in a concert as well as the same thing happening again at the Liam Gallagher concert.
Joining Murray was Nick Pope, father of Charlie Pope who drowned in the Manchester canals. He campaigned for barriers to put up in hazardous zones which eventually happened to keep others from danger.
Murray said that “It’s important to look out for each other” and added a progressive statement saying that if students were to carry out the roles like the Manchester Street Pastors, it would be very helpful. She said: “As a student, you understand the student mentality and drinking culture. You understand it all better. You’ve made the mistakes all before so you understand. It’s the best way to do it.”
Lord was surprised at the turnout which highlighted the importance of the issues and topic. An issue that was brought up the most was assault, especially by bouncers who are solely meant to regulate and protect people. He said “I personally think security isn’t organised well enough at the moment and sadly it’s the minority, not the majority that give them a bad name.”
A representative from the University of Manchester’s union said the issue evolves around our culture too. She said that a lot of people don’t feel safe going out at night because of the culture where people think they own people and that they think they have access to them. She also said it’s hard to change the mind and the culture. “We are trying to do that.”
Even though it may take time to put out immediate action that is unlikely to help the majority of people now, what we do and how we do it can help others like us in the future. Lord said “It’s not going to help students this year but we’re hoping from your experiences that you can benefit people in the future.” He agreed with the fact that the people that carry out these crimes are cowards – bullies. “We see tens and thousands of students who aren’t street wise; students are vulnerable,” he added.
He also admitted that if there was a solution to stopping knife crime, it would have happened by now. He said teamwork and awareness is key and it is the matter of how we stop that – how we help each other prevent getting into situations like that.
“I think rising awareness is a brilliant thing,” Lord said. “To say ‘Be careful with knives’ is the same as saying ‘Don’t take drugs.’ Everyone knows it’s out there. I don’t know what the answer is to be honest, but hopefully there’s good, positive conversation staring so we can get results.
Safety After Dark in Manchester 