New training for staff to spot and stop sexual harassment in night-time venues

ITV News Central reporter Ravneet Nandra spoke with women in Birmingham who are worried about their safety when out in the city's nightlife.

As young women, Charlotte, Katie and Ffion should be enjoying the night life Birmingham has to offer.But it’s been tainted by something they see and experience, almost nightly.

They're all part of the group, Urban Angels Birmingham, an online community to help women and non-binary people get home safely after a night out.

But the groups leader, Charlotte Wright, says she is seeing a lot of sexual harassment inside venues, before people leave to go home.

"When you're in a tight space, people think they can get away with inappropriate touching things like that. And that leaves you feeling unsafe.

"We go out with our friends in order to have a nice time, a fun time with our friends. We don't want to go out and be touched non-consensually, harassed verbally.”

Urban Angels was set up as a direct response to the death of Sarah Everard in 2021, who was raped and murdered on her walk home.

University of Birmingham society coordinator for Urban Angels say's she see's sexual harassment almost every time she goes out.

“A guy tried to come on to one of my friends. She sort of pushed him away, said no. And he sort of kept trying. I had another friend who, someone tried to take off her dress in a club which is very explicit, not discreet at all.”

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics, in 2023, a quarter of women aged 16 to 24 experienced sexual harassment in the last 12 months in England and Wales.

7 in 10 people- men and women- who experienced harassment in the last year reported that it came from a stranger.Now those that run venues in the city want to tackle that in their own establishments.

'Safer Dance' was set up by Sam Hennerley and Jack Young. They had seen the problem of sexual harassment and violence in various venues and wanted to do something about it.

They've now started a pilot scheme of specialised training for six venue bosses in the Midlands to notice and respond to sexual violence and harassment in venues from guests, and employees.

Jack thinks it's as important as fire safety. "It's about prevention, rather than intervention. This is a problem, it will occur, but it's about having those mechanisms in place to try and prevent that as much as possible.

"So if staff are trained, if staff are educated, if staff understand what to do, to actually see and spot those behaviours."

Nicol Dwyer runs Hockley Social Club in the city; a food, music and arts venue space for all ages.

She's one of the first venue bosses to trial the training.

“Knowledge is power, so instead of sitting in venues thinking we have an issue or problem, is look for the resources around you, come and find out about it and you'll be able to deliver that and make your space a safer place."The plan is to expand training across the country.

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