'No excuse for venues not to use Ask for Angela'

The creator of the Ask for Angela campaign says its new charity status will help it support more people who feel unsafe on a night out.

Hayley Crawford started the scheme 10 years ago in Lincoln pubs and named it after Angela Phillips, a family friend who was killed by her husband in 2012.

Ask for Angela allows people who feel unsafe in bars or clubs to discreetly seek help. When someone "asks for Angela", staff can help them leave safely or take them to a secure area.

Crawford hopes its new status will encourage more bars to take it on. She said: "There's never any excuse why a venue doesn't implement Ask for Angela."

The Ask for Angela Foundation was registered as a charity in October and will be led by Crawford.

"Becoming a charity means Angela is protected for good, and I'm proud to lead it," she said.

"I thought the best way to protect Ask for Angela is to pull it into a charity and make sure it's there for people in the future and there's consistency, free resources, free training.

"It's just nice to know there is something in place to help people so they don't feel helpless or feel like they've got nowhere to turn."

Crawford started the scheme while she was strategic lead for tackling sexual violence at Lincolnshire County Council after seeing an increase in people experiencing sexual harassment through online dating.

Crawford said people had told her they felt safer after seeing an Ask for Angela poster in a venue and some had told her it had got them out of "really unsafe situations".

The scheme was originally trialled in Lincoln pubs, and was then taken up by police forces and councils across the UK.

It has since spread to Australia, where it is implemented in Sydney, Perth and Adelaide.

Failures were uncovered by the BBC in 2024 when secret filming found that in more than half of the London venues they visited, staff failed to respond to the code word.

In 2025, Phillips's daughter, Hollie, called for government action to ensure the scheme was implemented properly.

Hollie said: "Ask for Angela has given us such a sense of pride and closure, knowing that women who feel unsafe in public spaces are using her name for safety."

Crawford said the charity status would help solve the issue of pubs not implementing the scheme.

"Hopefully, that will give them the confidence to implement the scheme and not feel like it's going to cost them a lot of money, or it's complicated, or that they won't have the support in place because they'll be able to access that all through the charity," she said.

"I'd love every venue to have a poster in every toilet and every member of staff to know what to do."

Venues can download free posters, staff guidance and training on the Ask for Angela website.

Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds , and watch the latest episode of Look North .

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