Wiltshire Police renew initiative to support women

Wiltshire Police has renewed a scheme to provide additional support to local women in public life who are at the receiving end of abusive emails and social media posts.

Operation Awake was set up in July 2023 in collaboration with the Salisbury Soroptimists and was run for a trial period of 12 months. 

The Salisbury Women’s Safety Initiative was initially started in March 2021 following the murder of Sarah Everard. A partnership was formed between Safer and Supportive Salisbury and Soroptimist International of Salisbury. The project group has been working closely with the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, Wiltshire Police, Wiltshire Council and Salisbury City Council. 

Soroptimist International of Salisbury was chartered in August 2019 in a ceremony in Salisbury Cathedral and since then Club members have continued to meet regularly and members undertake several projects to make life better for women and girls.

The review revealed that only a small number of complaints had been received which suggests that there are not significant issues in relation to how women in public life are treated in Wiltshire. However, Wiltshire Police are mindful that there may have been cases that were not reported. With that in mind, Wiltshire Police have agreed to continue to provide Op Awake and the new intelligence reporting method to women in public life.

All elected female councillors in Wiltshire have been contacted and given information on how to report gender-based crimes and incidents to Wiltshire Police with the title of Operation Awake.

Detective Chief Inspector Lucy Thorne, lead for Violence Against Women and Girls at Wiltshire Police said: “The continued commitment to Operation Awake is one further step to demonstrate our commitment to tackling violence against women and girls.This is something we in Wiltshire Police felt was an essential step to protect those women in public life.

"We want to ensure that those women who are working tirelessly to improve the lives of the communities of Wiltshire do not become victims of crime due to their work in this area or if they do, they have confidence to report that to us.”

Liz Batten of the Soroptimist project group said: “We are pleased that the police have agreed to continue this scheme because we have been told by female councillors that its existence provides reassurance to women in public life that there is a confidential and prompt way they can report any instances of gender abuse, whether by email, social media posts or threatening behaviour.

"We continue to say that ‘it’s not ok’ to be personally abusive to any woman – but we believe that those women who give of their time and energy to serve their local community deserve to be better protected from this kind of gender-based abuse.

"We are pleased that Wiltshire Police agreed with us that women should be encouraged to report the gender abuse they receive so that enquiries can be made to identify the perpetrators and assess any immediate risk.”