5 hours Ago
On Tuesday, December 3 ITV Granada Reports journalist Anna Yousseff was interviewing mother and daughter Gill Jones and Beth Fletcher on a park bench in Birkenhead. Gill was speaking about an experience they had during a family night out where a stranger tried to sexually assault her daughter Beth. However, during the interview a man interrupted the interview by sitting in the middle of the park bench between the women and Anna.
In the video interview shared by ITV , Anna can be seen explaining to the stranger that they were filming an ITV News story about an event by Wirral charity Tomorrow’s Women who aim to create safe spaces for women. The man refused to leave despite there being other empty benches nearby and became “verbally aggressive and threatening”, ITV News reports. The group were then forced to leave and carry out the interview elsewhere.
Speaking after the incident, Gill told ITV: "I was starting to get a little bit scared to be honest, having experienced what we experienced a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure what was going to happen and how that was going to escalate. "I was already safety planning really quickly, which you don't think you should have to when coming out into a public area.
" Her daughter Beth added: “You could just tell the lack of respect when it came to people in general and their personal space but to women in general - he had no respect whatsoever," she said. "I absolutely think women we are programmed to be on our guard on a night out. "The majority of the time its not women going and harassing men.
It's not women that are potentially going to spike your drink, it's not women that are getting aggressive towards the men because it is stereotypically the other way round. "I know obviously it can happen, but they are not subjected to it like us women are, and we do just want to go out and enjoy ourselves, so if we can go somewhere where we know we are not subjected to that attention and behaviour - then we are going to want that, we are going to push for that.".
