Campaign group ‘Motley’ demands the resignation of North Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Philip Allott on his Harrogate tour Yorkshire News

Philip Allott was criticized last week for comments he made about the murdered Sarah Everard, to whom he suggested that he should have resisted his arrest by the murderer Wayne Couzens.

Allott has since retracted his comments, but a group met yesterday outside his office tour in Harrogate to ask him to step down from his elected position.

The PCC itself was not present, but staff at its post received a petition with 165 signatures in support of the resignation.

Attorney Andrew Gray, whose Truth Legal firm has offices in Leeds and Harrogate, attended with his 11-year-old daughter. Gray moved to Harrogate from his native Manchester after an incident in the city in 2005 in which he was arrested and later assaulted by an off-duty police officer, leading him to develop anxiety.

Mr. Gray and several other legal professionals present agreed that if they had been in Ms. Everard’s position, they would have accepted the arrest and would not have known otherwise.

He said: “People got together through social media. I sent a message to some people I knew and they shared it online. It was organic, calm and spontaneous. People passing by joined the group and held signs and asked them to others to sign “.

“We met one person who strongly agreed with the CCP’s comments, but everyone else supported our criticism.

“A group of women ‘activists’ handed the petition to the PCC staff at the end. The staff were professional, unsurprisingly, committed to the people.

“As an anecdote, there were many lawyers who came forward, as well as people who work in criminal justice. Their opinion was that we would all have accepted the arrest and then we would wait to clear things up.” I have not made any difference. “It was a strange thing to say. .

“Unsurprisingly, the majority of this heterogeneous group, most of whom did not know each other, were women. Most of the people who signed the petition, of all ages, were women. I was there with my -Eldest daughter, like most people, I teach her to respect the police and to do what they say.

“His comments were, of course, muffled, poorly timed, and frankly wrong, from every angle, particularly from a woman’s perspective. But the strangest thing is the damage he’s done to the police in this area. Now the police are he will confront members of the public questioning his legitimacy. His position is untenable. It came from deep within. It was not a slip of the tongue. It was from another era.

“There is no power of revocation, as there is for the deputies. This has damaged their relationship with their constituents, as well as with the officials and all groups of victims. It makes their work impossible.”

Meanwhile, the Thirsk and Malton Labor group has also demanded that Allott step down.

A statement from them read: “Thirsk and Malton Labor Party calls on Philip Allott, the conservative North Yorkshire crime, fire and police commissioner, to resign immediately after his embarrassing interview on BBC Radio York.

“The entire country is universally shocked by the revelations that a duty police officer arrested Sarah Everard in a public place with the sole intention of raping and killing her. All who heard the facts yesterday understood that Sarah Everard was completely incapable of avoid her fate.Once the police officer identified himself as a member of the police force, she had no way to escape.

“However, after having had 24 hours to digest these facts, Philip Allott, the man responsible to the citizens of North Yorkshire for holding the North Yorkshire police to account, tells us that Sarah Everard should have resisted arrest and furthermore , that women should take responsibility for knowing more about the police and legal processes She chose to blame women for men’s violence towards them.

Thirsk and Malton’s Labor Party maintain that he was expressing his own conclusion from yesterday’s revelations and that his subsequent apology is false and simply expresses regret over the reaction to his comments, a reaction of universal condemnation.

“We call for his immediate resignation and declare that he is totally unsuitable to represent the citizens of North Yorkshire and especially unsuitable to represent women in the county.”