Esme Rice says 13-hour British Transport Police wait followed 61016 text
Esme Rice said she waited 13 hours for a british transport police response after texting 61016 about a sexual assault on an Elizabeth line train on 6 June. She said the delay left her feeling “disappointed and confused” after she expected the text line to act as a “safety net.”
Rice’s 61016 report
Rice said she was assaulted just before 23:00 BST while travelling home to east London. She said two men boarded her Elizabeth line train and assaulted her, then she texted the British Transport Police 61016 number two minutes after the attack.
Rice said she received an automated message saying she would be called shortly and that it was very urgent. She said she did not receive a phone call until 13 hours later, and that she could not find a police officer to report the assault to when she got off the train.
British Transport Police line
British Transport Police said 61016 receives more than a quarter of a million texts every year. The force said the service is monitored 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that reports requiring a police response go directly to its control room.
The force also said tackling sexual offending on the railway was a priority. After the incident, it released images of two men it wanted to trace in connection with the assault.
Two men from Stratford
The two men were believed to have been among a group of buskers who boarded the train and got off at Stratford at the same time as Rice. That left her report moving through a text service that she expected to provide quick contact, while police were separately trying to identify the men from released images.
Rice said women had since shared their own experiences with her about using 61016, with many describing long waits for a return call. “As a woman travelling alone you feel very unsafe and you expect to there to be this safety net,” she said. “There are lots of advertising campaigns around telling you this safety net is there, so when you reach out and you realise it's really just an illusion, then it's really quite upsetting.”
