Sarah Murphy Survived Attempted Kidnapping, Now She’s Using Tech To Take Her Safety Into Her Own Hands

‘When you grow up in a city you think of it as your home and that nothing bad will ever happen there,’ says Sarah Murphy, ‘and then I got attacked.’

In 2015, Sarah was walking home from a night out in Clapham, London when a car pulled up beside her and a man attempted to pull her inside. With four men in the car, she struggled to fight them off but managed to create a distraction as the door closed in on her, slamming both feet against the car window momentarily distracting one of the attackers. As she attempted to escape the men, a bus approached enabling her to get away.

Not all women are able to flee to safety. Last week it was reported that a man has been charged with the murder of Joy Morgan, a 21-year-old student at the University of Hertfordshire, who hasn't been seen since Boxing Day. In a widely unreported case, it is still not known exactly what happened to Joy, as she was last seen attending a celebration at her church.

For Sarah, knowing how close she was to being kidnapped has never left her. 'Nobody would've found out I was missing until the Monday evening when I was seeing my mum,' she told Grazia, 'if they had taken me that day, even if I had lived I don't think i'd ever be the same again.'

As a result of this trauma, she doesn't 'tend to go out alone anymore' and she moved out of London as soon as she could. But it wasn't just the attack itself that ate away at her, it was the fact there was no justice against her attackers. The police weren’t able to find them due to a blind spot in the CCTV, and while Sarah credits them as being ‘brilliant’ with her, their only advice was ‘well maybe you shouldn't walk alone that time of night'.

‘I just thought “no, that’s wrong, there are so many women that are working that can’t afford to be getting taxis at that time,’ Sarah said, ‘Just because my situation was a night out with my friends, there are so many people that are working at those hours and need to be getting home safely and what can the advice be to them?’

Feeling helpless and asking ‘what if?’, Sarah was overcome by the thought that had her kidnappers succeeded, nobody would’ve known she was missing until the following Monday when she had plans with her mum. But it was that thought, combined with the lack of judicial justice, that led to her lightbulb moment and spurred the creation of her very own personal safety app: Chaperhome.

‘Throughout that whole time, I was just thinking it would be really great if there was some way for people to know if something were to go wrong,’ she explained, ‘the way we've set up Chaperhome allows for you to go on your night out, alert people that you’re going out and the time you expect to me home, and have the person you want to protect you be alerted if you don’t make it home.’

It’s not just an arrival alert, Chaperhome also allows you to tap the app at various intervals in your journey to reassure your appointed ‘protectors’- who can be anyone in your phone contact list – and has an alert button if you require assistance from nearby friends. It means that should you get lost in a bar or club, you are two clicks away from sending your location to friends to find you. ‘I love using the Groups function on a night out with the ladies,’ says user Lucy Emily, 32, from Chester ‘we can make sure that we all stay safe and know where each other are.’

However, the most interesting feature on the Chaperhome app is their latest update, an interactive map updated by users and the police with local incidents. ‘There were a couple of times when I was using Google Maps walking and it would take you down quite a scary route, really isolated paths,’ says Sarah, ‘and I thought it would be really nice if we could choose the routes we walk home. People can write live alerts if there’s violence on a road, flooding or other natural disasters.’

Creating the app has enabled Sarah to turn her attack into a positive experience having spent years nervous to go out at night, something that she says has ‘100% affected’ not only her friendships but her work relationships too. Unable to socialise as she used to, ‘I always feel guilty that I can’t let go as much,’ she told us. Chaperhome, however, has given her more peace of mind.

Positive experience as it may be, women using tech to protect themselves and others from violence we continue to be the greatest bearers of only speaks to the lengths at which we must go to fight the dangers we face every day. According to a new study by YouGov, at least one in three women consciously take steps to avoid being assaulted on a day to day basis. These include not travelling alone, informing others of our whereabouts, not drinking as much, dressing a certain way, minimising interactions with strangers, having a phone prepared, the list goes on and on.

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It’s ironic given that the first question many women are asked when they report assault or harassment is about their own actions, when in reality many of us are going above and beyond to avoid it every single day. The physical and emotional toll of this cannot be underestimated, neither can the work of women like Sarah, who take these steps to an entire new level by creating an entire tech business around personal safety.

In a world where women are driven to social media for justice with a legal system that fails them, she’s literally a life-saver.

To find out more about Chaperhome, visit the website here. You can download the app using the App Store on Apple phones and Google Play on android.