PHD student who was sexually assaulted on the 207 launches campaign

A King’s PhD student has come forward to thank the man who stepped in to help her after she was sexually assaulted on a bus. 

Kaitlyn Regehr, currently completing her PhD in Performance Studies at King’s, was travelling home on the 207 through Shepherd’s Bush at around 10:30pm last Tuesday evening, when the student and documentary filmmaker had her bum “grabbed” by an unknown stranger.

Luckily, a fellow bus passenger was on the scene to stand up for her.

“I didn’t say anything, I just felt uncomfortable and moved out the way,” she told BuzzFeed News. “I probably wouldn’t have done anything more if [another passenger] hadn’t saw it. He told the guy who touched me, ‘What are you doing?’

“He also said ‘Do you have any women in your life? Do you have a mother, a sister?’, and I was really touched by that, he kind of humanised the situation. But while I was getting off, I didn’t get to thank him properly.”

Following on from this incident, Regehr went on Facebook to try and track down the man who had stood up for her in order, she said, to properly say thank you and buy him a pint at her local pub.

Not the actual bus…

Humanising

The photo then went viral in a big way, being shared over 40,000 times. In the post, the 30 year-old from Toronto thanks her Good Samaritan and gives a description, in the hope that someone in the neighbourhood recognises him.

She said: “People have messaged me, not just from London, but from all parts of the world. Men have contacted me too. One man contacted me on LinkedIn horrified that someone could feel so entitled to grab a woman’s bum.”

See the campaign here