The Yorkshire women fighting to keep you and your mates safe on a night out

6th May 2022

When it comes to helping women feel safer on a night out, there’s no one better to ask than the women themselves – which is exactly what Elysia O’Neill and Della Claydon are doing.

Following reports of a rise in drink and needle spikings last year, the Leeds-based duo and The Egalitarian co-founders moved quickly to set up the Spike Report – a community-led database for women to detail not just when and where they were spiked, but the response of venues and the police too.

Within nine days, it had already gathered over 160 reports. Seven months down the line, that figure is now in the thousands with reports spanning the length and breadth of the country.

The site is regularly visited by women, with the goal being to keep them and their mates safe on a night out.

Explaining the reasoning behind the idea, Elysia told The Hoot that only 1 in 10 people currently report being spiked to the police and that “there’s definitely a lack of empowerment and self-belief in terms of whether someone’s been spiked, whether anyone is going to believe them.”

“We set up the Spike Report to basically tackle the issue of how invisible spiking is as a problem […] and to essentially raise awareness of the fact that it is an issue, something that’s prevalent in society, ’cause it’s disputed by many large actors in the night time economy and the police themselves.”

Based on the numbers self-reporting to their database, it certainly appears that survivors feel much more confident reporting to their peers instead of the police.

It’s a sad fact certainly not helped by the high-profile murder of Sarah Everard by a policeman last year, nor by the Met’s brutal treatment of the women who gathered to hold a peaceful vigil in her memory after the fact.

By recognising this erosion of trust in traditional reporting methods, The Egalitarian team has now amassed a unique and detailed data set into what, where, when, and how spiking incidents are occurring across the country.

They’ve also been running a questionnaire since October 2021, asking their community what they would like to see in terms of changes regarding the news, police, legal systems, what kind of policies and procedures they can implement.

Now, through their new Safe Place initiative, they’re planning to use this data to educate venues, authorities and night time economy workers on how to better safeguard people on a night out.

Explaining the desperate need for an attitude shift in the industry as a whole, Elysia said: “We’ve got a very detailed insight into how people in the night time economy and other authorities are handling spiking.

“We’re wanting to create partnerships with the night time economy venues particularly because that’s what us as an organisation and the community themselves think, that really the onus does lie with venues, rather than necessarily the police.

“We want staff to be educated on safeguarding, vulnerability, looking out for people that are vulnerable, but knowing how to look after someone who has been spiked or even voluntary intoxication.

“Whether it’s voluntary or involuntary, it doesn’t make them any safer when you kick them out of the club.

“We need everyone to be looking after the customers, and essentially what we’re looking for is for venues to show that they do acknowledge that they have a duty of care for customers inside their venues.”

Here in Leeds, data from the Spike Report shows that 50% of survivors rated the venue’s response poor to very poor whilst 13% said it was good to very good.

23% of those people also contacted the police, of which 28% said the police response was poor to very poor and 42% said it was good to very good.

The Egalitarian team is positive they can bring much-needed change to the sector, expressing a strong desire to work closely with local authorities.

Elysia said: “I think once the word’s out and people […] are aware of the fact that we’re doing this I think it becomes a lot easier for government-funded services, which are struggling always and so underfunded, to know that this exists.

“It saves their time and their funding it could be really helpful to the wider community in such a mutually beneficial way that they know they can put it on us.”

Feature image – The Egalitarian