The victim was with her two children at the time.

Though Glasgow is the first city to trial the idea, there have been questions of how realistic a similar scheme in London would be.

‘People need answers.’

DS Derek Ridgewell targeted mostly black people in the 1970s, who he falsely accused of robbery and beat up if they tried to resist arrest, before fabricating a semi-confession and lying on oath so they would be convicted.

Li Liu, 26, and Wanqing Yu, 25, managed to claim around £140,000 to pay for their living expenses and tuition fees in Leeds.

Officers no longer have time to scour CCTV for longer than that window as it takes away from their patrols, British Transport Police (BTP) said.

When Sophia tried to stop the train and told other passengers, they responded ‘so what?’ and ‘they’re just kids’.

If you have travelled anywhere on a train over the past ten years, the chances are you’ve heard the ‘see it, say it, sorted’ announcement – or tried your best to ignore it.

The safety slogan has become a part of travel since it first launched in 2016, with people being told to contact the British Transport Police on 61016 if they see ‘something that doesn’t look right.’

It has spawned countless memes and jokes over the years, with descriptions ranging from mildly irritating to loathed as commuters are exposed to it daily.

But now the Department for Transport has relaunched the campaign to try and tackle rising crime on public transport.

It’s cost of around £400,000 for the relaunch, with the slogan staying the same.

New announcements – made using a real human voice rather than AI – include more detailed examples of kinds of things that could be considered a potential safety risk.

The government has also announced £17 million to improve CCTV cameras on the rail network so that the police can have better access to footage from stations.

Last year, there were 255,088 texts made to the BTP phone line for passengers – more than eightfold since the safety campaign first launched.

Meanwhile, violent crime on the transport networks targeting women and girls has increased, with 11,000 incidents reported in 2023-24 – a 20% increase compared to the previous year. Assaults on passengers were also on the rise.

This Is Not Right

On November 25, 2024 Metro launched This Is Not Right, a year-long campaign to address the relentless epidemic of violence against women.

With the help of our partners at Women’s Aid, This Is Not Right aims to shine a light on the sheer scale of this national emergency.

You can find more articles here, and if you want to share your story with us, you can send us an email at vaw@metro.co.uk.

Read more:

• Introducing This Is Not Right: Metro’s year-long violence against women campaign
• Remembering the women killed by men in 2024

With sexual crimes against women on public transport also on the rise in recent years, the outlook for travelling alone as a woman appears to be bleak.

However, the rail minister, Lord Hendy of Richmond, has sought to reassure women and girls.

Speaking to Metro at Victoria station, he said: ‘This campaign is designed to ask not only you but people around you to spot things going on. If you feel vulnerable, in a difficult situation, reminding others that there is a way they can report, is important.  

‘For you yourself, it is an invitation when something is going on, you can just quietly sit there and text and say what’s happening.  

‘If we didn’t do it, you wouldn’t have those opportunities, and it would be more difficult to say it.

‘And you can say it in real time, you don’t have to make a fuss and make a call, just sit there and text, and then the cops will know.’

Lord Hendy admitted he is pleased that the slogan is staying the same despite calls to change it, and has also said he has used the service himself in the past.

When asked about the criticism that the slogan sounds like people are told to ‘sort it’ themselves, he said: ‘It’s not an invitation to sort the problem yourself. And I don’t think many people think it is. It’s an invitation for people on stations and on trains to tell others what’s going on in order to sort out issues, in particular, for vulnerable people.

‘The government is committed to reducing violence against women and girls – and that’s much more important than anybody who thinks “oh dear, there’s another announcement.”‘

British Transport Police Chief Constable Lucy D’Orsi said that while the slogan is about national security, it has also brought in wider benefits over the years from the text messaging, in particular in relation to violence against women and girls.

She told Metro: ‘Passengers play their part in helping to create a hostile environment for criminality on the railway. In the modern world we live in, people don’t want to speak loudly on the telephone and call 999 or 111, whereas you can have a text conversation.  

‘The simple advantage is that you can report criminality and play your part in making it a hostile environment for sex offenders and people who are violent, and we want to deal with that.’

Texts to the phone line do not disappear into the ether, but they are checked and triaged, or urgently assessed, for a response.

Chief Constable D’Orsi said: ‘It goes to our call centre up in Birmingham, it gets triaged as an immediate call with the person, and we’ll ask for more information.

‘The onboard train crew may take a look on what’s happening, and we may board officers at the next available station and come and see what the problem is.

‘My appeal to people is: know what train you boarded, say which direction you’re going in and say which carriage you’re in, that’s really helpful to put that in the original text.’

When asked about the possible closure of dozens of BTP stations across the UK affecting response time, she said the force has had to make some ‘difficult decisions’ to reduce the size of its operation.

She said it has had to ‘prioritise’ and assess where the demand is.

She suggested the recent rise in reports of transport crime affecting women and girls could be partially explained by an ‘increase in confidence and trust of victims in policing to report it.’

‘Confidence in policing has been rocked previously, particularly for women, so it is good to see more confidence in people reporting,’ she said. ‘We are seeing more bystanders reporting behaviour that they see as unacceptable.  

‘We shouldnt lose the focus that within there may be people wanting to come to the railway to commit harrssment, sexual offences, and we are determined to bring the law down heavily on those people. There is no place for sex offenders, predatory sex offenders and people who want to harass women and girls to come onto the railway and think that is acceptable.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Issues on the line have continued for a second day.

Issues on the line have continued for a second day.

British Transport Police have released an image of a man they want to talk to (Picture: BTP)

Two men have been stabbed at a central London Tube station within 24 hours in attacks that may be connected.

The first serious assault happened a…

Detectives want to speak to a man dressed in a tracksuit captured on station CCTV (Picture: British Transport Police)

A woman was grabbed and sexually assaulted while travelling on the Tube in central London.

The attack happened at Londo…

‘The CPS concluded that there was not a realistic prospect of conviction.’

‘The CPS concluded that there was not a realistic prospect of conviction.’

A dozen incidents involving potentially dangerous chemicals on the London Underground have been revealed.

A dozen incidents involving potentially dangerous chemicals on the London Underground have been revealed.

Paramedics rushed to the scene but both Jordan and Joshua were pronounced dead.

In a devastating statement, Joshua’s parents spoke of how proud they were of their ‘incredibly precious son’.

British Transport Police said the victim challenged a group who attempted to barge through barriers without tickets at 4.20 pm on Thursday, June 12.

A desperate commuter flung fellow passengers in the path of a man chasing him through a busy London Underground station.

The bizarre pursuit was caught on camera at Earl’s Court, London after a scuffle broke out during Monday afternoon.

The passenger picks up a leaflet stand and wields it as a makeshift weapon to fend off another man in a long black coat.

He then swings another bemused passenger into the follower’s path in an attempt to put some distance between them.

He finally escapes when he forces his way through a wide aisle ticket barrier and his pursuer fails to do the same.

A video of the incident was posted to TikTok, with user @ellumsy3 captioning it: ‘Bro was trying to steal his watch.’

A second clip shows Transport for London (TfL) staff and two men pinning the wannabe-thief down as he screams.

‘Bro got caught,’ @ellumsy3 said.

The man, in his 20s, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of common assault and taken into custody.

British Transport Police (BTP) said: ‘Officers were called at around 1.40pm yesterday [Monday] to a report of a man attacking staff and a member of the public at Earl’s Court Underground station.

‘Members of the public had detained the man prior to police arrival and a man, aged 20, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of common assault and taken into custody.

‘Although enquiries are ongoing, there is currently no suggestion that the incident was related to an attempted watch theft.’

A TfL spokesperson added to Metro: ‘Everyone should feel safe and be safe when travelling in London. We are investigating this footage and we encourage anyone who witnessed or experienced this incident to report this to the BTP.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

The station was closed during the operation.

He also used a 16-17 Saver Railcard to get a half-price discount on his tickets.

CCTV stills of the suspects have been released by the British Transport Police (BTP) following the assaults on Southeastern services on March 18.

In one incident a laptop went missing while ‘in a friend’s possession’ at a restaurant.