Sarah Everard: Tory candidate replaces police commissioner who said women should be more 'streetwise'

Conservative Zoe Metcalfe has won the by-election to replace a police commissioner who resigned after making comments about Sarah Everard’s murder.

The county councillor was elected North Yorkshire police, fire & crime commissioner in the second round of voting, defeating Labour candidate Emma Scott-Spivey.

Conservative Philip Allott, who was elected in May, resigned last month, hours after losing a no-confidence vote triggered by what he admitted were “absolutely ridiculous” and “pathetic” comments in a radio interview.

More than 1,000 complaints were made after he said women should be more “streetwise” about powers of arrest and that Ms Everard should not have “submitted” to arrest by her killer Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer.

The Prime Minister was said to have been outraged by the comments, seen as being worse as Ms Everard’s family live in York, and they were considered by many as victim-blaming.

Ms Metcalfe secured 41,760 votes in the second round, with Ms Scott-Spivey gaining 26,895 in an election where the turnout was just 13.94%, down from 25.33% in May.

There were three other candidates knocked out in the first round, with independent Keith Tordoff gaining 14,988 votes, Liberal Democrat James Barker 9,499 and Sarah Barham-Brown of the Women’s Equality Party 8,837.

Simon Dennis, chief executive of the office of the North Yorkshire police, fire & crime commissioner, said he was delighted to welcome Ms Metcalfe to the role and looked forward to working with her in the years ahead.

“I also want to thank Jenni Newberry for serving as acting police, fire & crime commissioner for the past few weeks and all the team at the office of the police, fire & crime commissioner who have worked so hard to ensure our work continued without interruption ahead of this by-election.”