I posted about this in the general CE forum, but didn't realise it was being discussed here. The whole area is in complete shock. I walk and run this section of the canal walk regularly and it's always busy. You'd struggle to walk a couple of hundred metres without passing someone walking, running, cycling or fishing. It's incredible that this kind of thing can happen in broad daylight on such a popular spot.
I felt the chat about the suspect was premature, even though I was confident they must have got their man. I thought when he was arrested so quickly, they must have been sure. But regardless, this senseless attack and random murder (as it seems to be at the minute) is a new thing to this area. It has rocked the people here to our core. To think that the perpetrator is still out there is frightening.
I'm a teacher too and in our staff room today, which is predominantly female, we had a chat about how women feel going out to exercise on their own. I read the tweets after Sarah Everard's murder, but that was London. It didn't hit home. I'm from the midlands in Ireland. I, naively, didn't really realise that even here, women send their live locations to family members when they are going for a walk or a run, women carry their keys in their fist when a man is approaching them, women worry about the man running behind them and whether he is going to attack them. I thought, women in big cities, worry about these things. Not the girls and women I know. But they do, and now I know why. I'm truly saddened and shocked by this.