Demo outside cosmetics shop after video of man grappling with woman goes viral
Police are investigating a confrontation at a shop in south London between a customer and a man believed to be an employee, with viral video footage of the incident sparking protests.
Officers visited the shop, Peckham Hair and Cosmetics in Rye Lane, Peckham, just after 1.15pm on Monday following reports a 31-year-old woman had attempted to steal items and was prevented from leaving by an employee.
The woman was arrested on suspicion of assault and later bailed pending further enquiries, the Metropolitan Police said.
There is no suggestion the man has been arrested.
Footage of the incident in Peckham, south London, has gone viral
Demonstrators gathered outside the shop on Tuesday afternoon after the video was shared on social media.
Footage shows a violent confrontation between the man, said to be of Asian heritage, and the black woman.
He then appears to grab her by the throat before restraining her by her arms, as she tries to break free from his grasp.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted: “I know Londoners are concerned by the recent events in a shop in Peckham. I’m in touch with the Met Police and am urgently seeking further information.”
Sistah Space, a charity which supports women of African and Caribbean heritage, criticised the police for arresting the woman.
They told Sky News: “What we all saw in that video was traumatic. People do not understand how triggering this is to watch, much less to experience.
“This black woman was attacked and there is no excuse for it, to add insult to injury she was arrested and the perpetrator was left alone at the scene of the crime.
“She has been failed by the police and violently attacked by a criminal with no accountability.”
The charity also shared footage on Instagram showing women chanting “shut it down, shut it down” outside the shop during the protest.
Activist Sayce Holmes-Lewis posted footage on social media urging people to boycott the store and to assemble outside at 2pm to peacefully protest.
“We hit them in the pocket, that’s the only language they understand,” he said.
“Emotions can get the better of us sometimes so it’s important that we keep a lid on emotions and be very clear on our objective today, which is to make sure that we boycott this store and any other store that is going to treat us in a derogatory manner and disrespectful, and extract money from the community and not put anything back in.”
Mr Holmes-Lewis told Sky News: “I went because I wanted to stand in solidarity with black women abused routinely not protected and supported in the way they should be.
“The protest was peaceful, purposeful and looking for a positive outcome that supports the lady in question.
“[The] point of the protest was to showcase people that treat women in this way, it can’t be done and we will come out in force to support them and if they continue to do this, will take our business elsewhere.”
He added: “The CCTV doesn’t make a difference, the man is 6ft 2in and twice the size of the lady.
“If no one was there filming and no one to back the lady, who knows what was going to happen. There are levels of violence we are not going to accept, doesn’t warrant what he did.”
Read more on Sky News:
Investigation after malicious email sent to schools
‘Brazilian butt lift’ warning after death of Briton in Turkey
Poundland to take over up to 71 Wilko stores
The Metropolitan Police have appealed for people to remain calm while a full investigation is carried out into the incident.
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
Detective Chief Superintendent Seb Adjei-Addoh, local policing commander for Southwark, said: “We know people will be concerned about a video circulating online of an incident in a shop.
“Our officers attended on Monday and continue to investigate the full circumstances of what has taken place. The investigation will include reviewing the actions of everyone involved.
“I would like to thank people in our local community for remaining calm and giving us the time to conduct a thorough investigation.
“If you have information that may help us I would urge you to get in touch.”
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
Read more:
G7 summit ‘all about the Donald’ – analysis
Scrambled G7 agenda as leaders race to de-escalate Israel-Iran conflict
In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike