Newcastle Women’s Street Watch group says it faces abuse from men

The founder of a street watch group, which helps women on nights out, says men need to “call each other out” on misogynistic behaviour.

Women’s Street Watch Newcastle was set up by Charlie following the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in 2021 and provides a safe space in the city’s Bigg Market.

Charlie said the group of volunteers was “consistently” being abused by men while doing their jobs, and two separate men acted threateningly towards her on Saturday night.

She said: “It doesn’t really matter how women respond or react, things like catcalling, insulting women, or making jokes about their appearance is never to impress women – it’s to impress men.”

She said she had faced abuse at the end of her shift after a “hectic night”, which left her “covered in vomit and blood from the women we’d been supporting”.

As she was leaving the city centre, she said an unknown man came to her car window and verbally abused her with “such venom and hatred”.

“It was completely unprovoked, I didn’t ask him to move or beep at him, he wasn’t in the way, and I don’t even think he even knew I was associated with street watch,” she said.

Charlie said the man “laughed and looked at his friends for a reaction, but they looked completely blank” and a woman walking with the group “looked utterly disgusted”.