Sarah Everard’s vigil was a PR nightmare for the Met – it needn’t have been
What’s my golden rule of crisis PR? As someone who has advised on many situations where boardroom backs have been to the wall, it is this: behave as you would like others to see you.
Stand back from whatever is going on and ask yourself, if I do or say this, how will it be seen? It might be the right thing to do, the correct statement to release, but how will it be judged? Not by those immediately involved and your shareholders, since they’ve got an interest, but by the wider world, by the people on whom ultimately your reputation depends.
This is where the Metropolitan Police failed lamentably on Saturday night when they were captured on camera using force to disperse women who had gathered, not to provoke a riot, but to pay their respects to a woman allegedly abducted and killed by a serving police officer. That simple, awful connection should have put the Met on added notice that this was no ordinary event; this was a drama in which they were already central actors.
To treat it as just another group coming together in defiance of the lockdown rules was misguided. To then apply the letter of the law was abhorrent. Then, to insist in the follow-up interviews that this behaviour was excusable was crass. Such behaviour may have been justifiable but that doesn’t make it right.
The alarming aspect is the police’s inability to detach themselves from what was unfolding. They’re programmed to react only one way – to conduct themselves as robots. The law is the law, therefore it must be upheld.
The warning signs were there. They were all pointing to a PR disaster if they got it wrong; and get it wrong they did. They simply ignored them and blundered on. First, they flatly rejected a request to mark Sarah Everard’s last known sighting, saying such a vigil was contrary to the Covid regulations. Then, when their refusal was ignored and people started assembling, including the Duchess of Cambridge, that should have put them on red alert – this was a crowd that came with royal approval if not theirs. They then made a bad situation much worse by being seen to rough up the women.
This wasn’t a baying mob outside Downing Street. They weren’t trashing buildings and national monuments. They were wearing masks, as many rioters do, but face masks, to stop the spread of the virus, not to disguise their identities. Some of the late-comers may have been agitators, seeking to whip up the crowd and what began as a quiet coming together was in danger of turning into something different. Nevertheless, the police commanders were still unable to see how they and their colleagues could end up being viewed.
Two police officers throwing a woman to the ground is a terrible look. It carries echoes of the death of George Floyd in the US, appears out of all proportion, and in this case especially, is resonant of brutality when a police officer is charged with the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard. Is also suggested that we care more about enforcing the law than looking after women as they walk home at night. That was the simple, snapshot perception which, where PR is concerned, is more important than the reality. Which bit of this do the Met’s chiefs not understand?
As a writer and for some years a PR adviser, specialising in crisis and reputation, I’ve been in situations where I’ve suggested to corporate bosses they simply do the decent thing. I remember asking the head of Thomas Cook if he had ever met the family of the two children who died from carbon monoxide poisoning, the result of a faulty boiler on one of their holidays in Greece. Ever since, the travel operator that boasted of catering for families and supplying trust and reliability, had been embroiled in a public media storm. Its management were not monsters. But by choosing to take the safety option, and sheltering behind lawyers, that’s how they came across, as uncaring and unfeeling.
When I made the recommendation, the lawyer present nearly had a heart attack. I said you don’t have to admit liability, it’s about being seen to share their pain, to show you care. The CEO ignored the solicitor and met them, and suddenly the PR backlash subsided.
Same with a restaurant chain that had a young diner die from an allergic reaction, possibly to something he ate at one of their branches; and the aviation company that suffered a tragic crash that may or may not have been caused by a weakness in design. Stay calm, use common sense, display compassion. And do it quickly, and with purpose.
This reminds me of one of the worst PR moments in recent times, one that had a significant political outcome. The morning after Grenfell, as the fire was still smouldering, Theresa May chose not to visit the tower. The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did and was photographed hugging the survivors and those who had lost loved ones. The PR-savvy Tony Blair would have gone, so would David Cameron, but not May. The reason was that the police could not guarantee her security – they’d not had time to plan for her trip. But this was true of any impromptu public outing by the Prime Minister. By the time she did go, the moment was lost; and rather than illustrate how much she was grieving, which she was, the public marked her down as not being authentic, as not on their side.
Dame Cressida Dick strikes me and a lot of people as a good person. She has little to fear about how she’s seen; she is highly regarded. But somewhere, amid the layers of management and process, the ability and instincts of the Scotland Yard commander seem to get lost. She should have gone to the vigil. I know she banned it, but as a woman she should have told the women she completely understood. She would have been seen to listen, and could then have appealed to them to go home. As it was, when she appeared the day after it was too late, and she felt compelled to excuse and to explain.
It’s a hard lesson to absorb, particularly for someone charged with applying the law, but where PR is concerned, the perception really is more important than the reality.