Liverpool Safer Streets: I feel unsafe as a woman travelling alone - student

Student Bella Unsworth-Brown says she keeps an eye on people around her when she is travelling by herself

A female university student has described having to change her behaviour when she travels in Liverpool on her own as she feels "unsafe".

It comes as Liverpool's Safer Streets project aimed at improving women's safety, especially on public transport, was rolled out across Merseyside.

Bella Unsworth-Brown, 19, said she will not use headphones and was "wary" of people near her when she travels alone.

She welcomed the scheme which sees police officers on student bus routes.

Safer Streets was launched in Liverpool last year after a survey run by Merseyside's Police and Commissioner Emily Spurrell found 54% of women felt unsafe using buses and trains at night while more than 40% felt unsafe during the day.

Ms Unsworth-Brown said she felt "unsafe" and "wary about what I am doing" as she got off buses in the evening.

"It is inevitable that you will feel unsafe when you are by yourself but I don't necessarily think that you should have to change your behaviour, especially as a woman."

However, the first-year student originally from Kent said she did.

"I definitely make sure I don't have any headphones in... [and] if there is someone around me I definitely make sure I know whereabouts they are."

Uniformed officers are travelling on some student bus routes at weekends

The scheme is designed to help women like Ms Unsworth-Brown, with uniformed police officers now travelling on the student bus route at weekends and extra CCTV along the routes.

There is a police vehicle following the bus, said Sgt Mandy Hamilton.

"That helps us identify if we see there are people approaching students or at a bus stop when a bus has gone past two or three times and they haven't got on one," she said.

Students are also being trained as guardians to help women on nights out as part of the project.

Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell (fourth from left) with student guardians and street pastor Mark Latham

Mark Latham, who has been a street pastor for more than 10 years, is training students to become guardians to help women get home or offer emotional support.

He said there has been an increase in inappropriate behaviour in the city centre.

"We've had more women feel that they are being followed or they have been groped," he said.

Georgia Lindsay, 25, has just begun as a volunteer guardian.

The Liverpool John Moores University student said: "I have experienced what every other woman has experienced when they go out in the town and that is kind of like you do have the fear of walking home on your own.

"Your phone might die... you might just get into situations that unfortunately happen when you are out on the streets drinking."

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