A woman who reported being sexually assaulted by two men on the London Tube claims police took 13 hours to respond to her call. Esme Rice, 31, says she was groped while getting off an Elizabeth line train at Stratford station in East London at around 11pm on June 6.
Despite messaging British Transport Police (BTP) on 61016 within two minutes of the alleged incident, officers did not contact her until midday the following day. Esme, a marketing agency founder from Hackney Wick, East London, says she feels "massively let down" by the sequence of events.
The Incident
Esme believes two men, who she thinks were buskers, boarded at Liverpool Street or Whitechapel station. She had been out for dinner with a friend before travelling home, boarding at Farringdon station. She said: "They immediately started trying to get my attention. One of them was playing music on a violin within inches of my face. I was just ignoring them. I was groped by two men. I was getting off the train at the time that it happened, so I had no opportunity to process this before the doors were shut and they were already gone."
Delayed Response
Esme sent a message to 61016 just two minutes after the assault and waited up for hours for a return call, but her phone remained silent. When she finally received a call 13 hours later, officers requested she give a statement the following Monday. An hour before the call, she shared her ordeal on social media to raise awareness.
She said: "I was really scared. It is just harrowing and you feel so unsafe. I know that I can't fight anyone off. You just feel uneasy knowing that the safety blanket you think is there of the officers is not there. It is shocking because those men stayed on that train and could have continued assaulting people. I texted and I knew exactly where they were at that time, and if police had come at that moment on that train they would have been caught and stopped. It just feels very disappointing."
Overwhelming Response
Esme says the response from other women who have endured similar experiences has been overwhelming since her social media post. She expressed: "I am just angry. I feel like this has happened to me so many times. I am equally saddened as I am empowered to use my voice and try to do something about it because it just feels like unless we speak up about it we don't know what is actually being done. My biggest thing is the amount of people who have resonated with it. Every hour I am receiving messages, DMs, comments, of someone else sharing their story of this happening to them."
Esme states she doesn't hold BTP responsible, believing their lack of funding and resources led to the slow response. An appeal is now underway for two men in connection with the reported assault.
BTP Statement
A spokesperson for BTP said: "Tackling sexual offending on the railway is a force priority for us, and we're committed to protecting everyone's right to a safe journey. We're tireless in our efforts to raise public awareness of when and how to report crime, such as using our discreet text-to-report service. No report is too small or too trivial – every single sex offence reported to us is taken extremely seriously and we will always do everything in our power to bring predatory sex offenders to justice. The 61016 number receives over a quarter of a million texts every year – and this figure continues to rise as confidence grows among passengers in reporting historically underreported crimes, such as sexual offending. This isn't misplaced confidence, as we've shown time and time again that we won't stop until we've caught offenders, put them before the courts, and secured justice for victims."
