‘I was a victim of flashing

Emma Kay wanted to help give women peace of mind when walking home and hopes her little girl doesn’t grow up with the same internalised fear as she did

From a young age, Emma Kay familiarised herself with the extra precautions she would have to take as a woman. Her first experience of sexual violence happened when she was just a teenager, walking home from school.

Knowing she and others would be taking that route, men would hide in bushes and wait on them to walk by like prey before exposing themselves, she says. It was during this time that her father, a former police constable for the Metropolitan Police, gave her a set of strict instructions to follow in a bid to ensure her safety.

She accepted the rules as a ‘normal’ thing to abide by back then and they became a checklist she internalised as a now 34-year-old woman, with two children of her own. Although she agrees the onus shouldn’t be on women to have to change their behaviours to avoid unwarranted attention from males – and while she recognises that it is not all men but it is all women – she wanted to do something that could give women immediate peace of mind.

Tired of waiting for Government lobbying and improvements to sexual education in schools, she felt compelled to create a free app – WalkSafe+ – that aims to see women home safely. But even she argues her business shouldn’t have to exist.