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Many commuters will recognise the moment. You’re standing on a packed bus or in a crowded carriage, and you feel a hand rub against your thigh. Was it just an accident? After all, you’re squished in so tight you can tell the man standing next to you showers with lime Radox and just ate a bag of Cool Original Doritos. But then those fingers edge slightly higher...

When I asked for tales about sexual harassment on public transport, I was inundated. Londoners reported being leered at, catcalled, followed, flashed and groped — all on the daily commute.

A student travelling on the Central line in rush hour felt a man rub his erection against her leg. Then there was the literary agent on a busy bendy bus who suddenly realised a teenage boy was putting his hand up her skirt; when her boyfriend understandably made a scene, a much older man told him to shut up because she was “asking for it” and she was “a slag”.

Then there was the woman on the last train from Richmond to Waterloo who thought the man opposite her was snoring — when she looked up, she realised he was actually groaning: his fly was open and he was masturbating.

Currently, police are appealing for witnesses to a sexual assault at Aldgate East station in March, when a man wearing a multi-coloured jacket boarded a District line train and harassed and assaulted female passengers. This list could go on. And on. And on.

A 2012 YouGov survey for the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) found that 43 per cent of women in London aged between 18 and 34 had experienced sexual harassment in public spaces during the previous year. And the capital’s Tube, rail and bus networks are prime hunting grounds for the capital’s creeps and gropers.

Between July 2013 and April, there was a 27 per cent jump in the number of sexual offences reported on public transport, with 936 cases, compared with 737 a year earlier. However, this rise coincides with a campaign by the British Transport Police, Project Guardian, to raise awareness of harassment and to encourage victims to report crimes. The number of suspects arrested and charged or cautioned has also risen by 22 per cent in this period, to 358.

Project Guardian is run in conjunction with the Met, TfL and the City of London Police, and has taken advice from women’s groups EVAW, the Everyday Sexism Project and Hollaback London, the capital’s branch of a global movement that aims to stop harassment in public places.

“It is a heavily under-reported crime: TfL research suggests around 90 to 95 per cent of cases don’t get reported,” says Inspector Ricky Twyford, who manages Project Guardian. “Our main aim is to give victims and witnesses the confidence to come and talk to us about it... The more reports we have, the better equipped we’ll be to deal with it.”

A MAJOR cause of under-reporting is a perception that these crimes are trivial or inevitable and that the police have more important matters to address. “People have misgivings about reporting these things — they see them as minor,” says Bryony Beynon, who co-founded Hollaback London with Julia Gray in 2010. “But people who commit such crimes may go on to do something more serious. It’s a gateway crime to a higher level. Leering may become groping, which might become public masturbation or assault.”

And such crimes can have long-lasting effects on victims. Last month, a woman told the Evening Standard that a sexual assault had left her too emotionally scarred to travel on the Tube. She was attacked at London Bridge station last October by a father-of-two, Cao Cooc, and said: “I don’t know what would have happened if the police had not been there and grabbed this man.”

Twyford is adamant that the police treat these crimes seriously: “We’re trying to debunk myths. There’s a belief that victims won’t be believed, that it won’t be taken seriously, that we can’t catch these people. It’s never going to be a positive experience but we are trying to make the interaction with the police as reassuring and comforting as possible.”

Far from it being impossible to bring prosecutions, the police have powerful weapons in their anti-groping arsenal. Around 2,000 police officers and PCSOs patrolling the capital’s transport network have been specially trained to deal with cases of sexual harassment. Plain-clothes police sometimes catch people in the act. Officers are also trained in “behavioural assessment screening” so that they can recognise the way sexual offenders tend to act before they commit an offence. “Our pursuit is relentless,” says Twyford.

Both the Tube network and buses are well-covered by CCTV, a major tool for investigations. Images can then be circulated among the police and public. Oyster data can also be used: if users are registered to cards, the police know where they tapped in and out, and can send officers to those stations to pick them up there.

Sometimes, there is also DNA evidence. And — to serve as a warning to others — when individuals are convicted, the BTP publicises it, putting the sanction (such as the perpetrator going on the sex offenders list) into the public domain.

EVAW says it tends to be the same perpetrators again and again. The charity also notes that teenage girls and younger women are more heavily targeted, perhaps because they may appear less confident and the perpetrator may calculate that they are less likely to call them out. But men can also be victims. One recalls being groped aged 14 on a crammed tube train: “A man started stroking my penis through my trousers. All I could do was use my nearest hand to hold his hand away forcibly — I didn’t want to cause an incident in such a narrow environment.”

The low reporting rate also reflects the fact that some victims are too upset to report the crimes and would prefer not to relive it. Many of those who contacted me — both women and men — said they were too shocked, embarrassed or even ashamed either to draw attention to it at the time, or to go to the police.

Sometimes, though, victims are also unsure whether a crime has been committed. The law here is actually fairly straight-forward: as soon as a person makes contact with someone in a sexual manner without consent — which can include pressing up against someone — that is sexual assault. Exposing genitals or masturbating in public can bring charges of “outraging public decency”, and aggressive sexual comments can be an offence under public disorder laws.

Additionally, the railway has very specific bylaws, some of which can be used against lower level criminal behaviour.

Next year, TfL will also launch a poster campaign to try to combat sexual harassment on the transport network, although critics note that this would have been better timed if it had started with the BTP’s campaign. “These things need to be even higher up the priority list,” adds Beynon. “Awareness work on trains and buses will really help, though.”

Beynon is pleased, though, that victims increasingly feel able to fight back: “People say ‘just walk away’ but that contributes to a culture of silence. It won’t be right for everyone but speaking up to perpetrators can be really empowering — you can counter expectations that you’ll stay quiet and take back some control of the situation.”

HOW TO HANDLE THE GROPERS

There is no single, correct way to respond to harassment. But police advice is to try to extricate yourself from the situation, ask for help from other passengers and call the British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40 or text them on 61016 in confidence. You can also contact Rape Crisis.

Gropers are trying to humiliate you into staying silent. If you feel able, make other passengers aware: calmly relay exactly what is happening and identify the groper.

If you have a bag, use it to put some distance between yourself and the groper. It communicates to them that you won’t tolerate what’s happening. If you’re able to, consider taking a photo of the perpetrator.

If you’re above ground, make a call and refuse to engage. Many perpetrators are excited by the distress they’re causing by isolating you: making a call makes you less alone and simulates apathy for what is taking place in front of you.

One friend handles sexual comments by staring down the Neanderthals and asking them to repeat some crasser comments “so the rest of the ladies in the carriage can hear what a catch you are”.

If you’re being followed, go above ground immediately. Find a member of the British Transport Police or go into a shop and tell a member of staff.

For inspiration, some Twitter followers of the Everyday Sexism blog have come up with snappy replies for less threatening situations:

“On train home guy rubs my bum. I grab hand, lift it in the air & say ‘Has anyone lost a hand? I found this one on my arse!’” (@punk_manners)

“Flashed at on a bus when I was 19. Snorted and said I’d seen more meat on a butcher’s apron. Flasher got off bus, head low.” (@Rachel_Malone)

“When I get harassed I always pretend I didn’t hear & say ‘What?’ The more they have to repeat, the sillier they sound.” (@KariAnnSpriggs)

PHOEBE LUCKHURST