![\"Police](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/69188ce8-b23c-4562-b31e-f7a83ea97cc3.png\")
Police are going undercover to nab catcallers who harass female runners in a county outside of London. (Surrey Police)<\/p>\nPolice are going undercover to nab catcallers who harass female runners in a county outside of London.<\/p>\n
Female officers dressed in plain clothes and running gear are being sent out in places of concern around Surrey to confront \ufeffcatcalling or sexually suggestive comments.<\/p>\n
There are support crews nearby \ufeffready to help deal with potential perpetrators.<\/p>\n
Police are going undercover to nab catcallers who harass female runners in a county outside of London. (Surrey Police)<\/p>\n
Police will pursue legal action for any repeat offenders or offenders with more serious behaviour.<\/p>\n
Surrey Police north division officer Abi Hayward said being catcalled while trying to get her cardio in is an all too familiar experience for her.<\/p>\n
“I feel diminished, I just feel uncomfortable,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It makes me feel uneasy, and then instantly, it’s just ruined my run. I just don’t want to.”<\/p>\n
Hayward has volunteered for the program to \ufeffhelp stamp out harassment within the community, after a local council survey found almost half of the respondents had been catcalled but never reported the incident.<\/p>\n
“The \ufeffchange I’d like to see is for people to recognise that it’s not right,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It’s not just a small act. It’s a thing that can make someone feel really quite uncomfortable.” \ufeff<\/p>\n
\ufeffThe program was launched in Reigate and Banstead in mid-July, using the same tactics as an initiative that sees undercover female officers identify and intervene in predatory behaviour in bars, clubs and town centres. <\/p>\n
Reigate and Banstead Borough Commander Inspector Jon Vale said the program has already recorded a number of incidents of harassment.<\/p>\n
“In these cases, it was deemed appropriate to provide education around anti-social behaviour,” he said.<\/p>\n
Vale said he wanted the public to know about their undercover tactics to make perpetrators think twice about their behaviour.<\/p>\n
The program has now been rolled out \ufeffacross wider Surrey. \ufeff<\/p>\n
“This type of harassment isn’t just being experienced by communities in Reigate and Banstead, but communities across the whole of Surrey, and it’s unacceptable,” Vale said.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Police are going undercover to nab catcallers who harass female runners in a county outside of London. Female…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-64157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}