Undercover female police pose as runners to crackdown on harassment
It's been one month since the launch of the Jog On campaign, which has been made to try and stamp out catcalling and harassment
Surrey Police force is urging members of the public to come forward if they have seen or experienced harassment.
It's a month in to the new Jog On campaign which has involved undercover female police officers running in key locations to find evidence of harassment.
Support crews accompany female officers who have volunteered to take part from a distance, ready to swoop in if the officers experience catcalling or harassment.
Jon Vale is the borough commander for the Reigate and Banstead area, and also the head of the campaign.
"In essence it was a bit of an experiment to see if we could actually evidence the scale of the issue locally and and what we have seen is it is a real problem.
So for example, we ran an operation at the end of July, two of our plainclothes female officers were targeted within minutes of the start of that operation. Firstly by male in a lorry. He was beeping his horn at them, making gestures out of the window as he drove past. And then a very short time later again, a matter of minutes, they were targeted again in a similar way."
Vale describes the current situation for female runners as unacceptable
"It can always have a huge impact on people's everyday lives, and it stops women from doing, something as simple as going for a run, changing their running routes, changing the times that they go out, whether they go out at all on a run. And that's just not an acceptable position for us to be in."
Jon Vale says that this an issue where there is not much evidence as it isn't highly reported, therefore the public reporting on incidents they witness could play a massive part in fighting the problem
"In reality this is an issue that we we still know relatively little about. The information and the need for us to take further action actually came from our own officers, our own female officers and staff who reported the persistent nature of the harassment while running.
We really urge the public to continue to report to the easiest way of doing that is probably online, but there's also another tool that they can use and that is the street safe website."