'Hurtful and traumatising': Rise in men 'spitting' on women runners in disturbing new form of street harassment
27 May 2025, 21:00
One in ten women say they have been spat on while running - as 'spitting' on women becomes an alarming and underreported form of street harassment.
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One victim of this disturbing form of harassment, Alice Giddings, told LBC's Shelagh Fogarty about her experience: "I was coming to the end of my run, I started to slow down and heard shouting, swearing, [I then] turned around and a giant glob of spit landed on my leg."
Ms Giddings said it was "very apparent that it was intentional".
Unfortunately, two weeks later, the same thing happened again.
Shocked by the attacks, Ms Giddings commissioned a study alongside Women's Running after posting a call-out on a women's social media group to find out if others had been impacted by the horrendous incident.
Ms Giddings, who is a journalist at Metro, told Shelagh she was astonished by the response: "I got 80 replies in 24 hours".
The study found that 10% of female runners have been spat at or spat on while running.
Read more: Men deliberately body-slamming women as more cases of 'violent' trend emerge in London
Ms Giddings continued: "Every single woman I've spoken to was spat on in busy built up areas. So it's not like they're in a park alone at night - they're taking every precaution they can and it's still not working."
She added: "the onus should be on men, it shouldn't be on women to have to protect ourselves. We need to educate people and we need to make it more of an issue about it."
Ms Giddings slammed the actions of those who commit acts of street harassment, telling Shelagh: "It's hurtful and it's traumatising, and it hurts even more that we are subjected to so many more acts of violence against women and this is, unfortunately, the cherry on top."
She called for greater education of young boys in schools.
"We need to start having these conversations. Yes, it's not all men, but it's a lot of men."
Ms Giddings explained that the awful incident led to her changing her routine as she would then only run with her partner and would avoid the busy road where the attacks took place.
This comes as the Metropolitan Police are looking into reports of body-slamming attacks across London after four people were assaulted in Mile End earlier this month, according to the Express.
TikTok user Ayla Mellek begged Londoners to be careful as she recounted an incident where a man deliberately "body-slammed" her to the ground on an East London canal path.
She said in a TikTok video: "I just got assaulted today in broad daylight."
Mellek said she was walking on the canal path in Mile End when she saw "this guy running towards me."
She said the man was "massive, like double my height - he's like 6 foot 4."
"He had muscles all in his shoulders, and he was dressed in blue."
She said she initially believed the man was just jogging along the canal.
As he drew closer, she heard him "grunting" and "growling".
"I twisted my body so he could get past me, because it is a bit crowded, and there was a gap for him to get past me."
"Instead of going in this gap, this guy ran at me at full force and body-slammed me to the ground."
Mellek said she was slammed with such force that she "twisted in the air and landed face down on the floor."
n the video, she showed the camera her hands, which were injured in the attack.
She said the man ran away after the assault.
She said: "I was in so much shock, I just started crying immediately."
Two joggers passing by stopped to help as her friend attempted to call after the attacker.
Mellek said the canal was busy and there were plenty of people around to witness the incident.
Mellek said a couple overheard her phone conversation with her boyfriend as she explained to him what had happened, and told her they had seen the same man push an elderly man into the canal.
She reported the incident to the police after hearing this information.
Mellek noted she was lucky not to have hit her head on concrete, or the metal boat hooks that line the canal.
TikTok users reported similar incidents in the comments of Mellek's video. Ella Bailey said:
"This happened to me outside of Old Street station a few months ago! I was waiting to cross the road and a man running body slammed me so hard I got knocked over backwards onto the concrete."
"As well as cutting my elbow, hitting my head, bruising my hands and wrists, my camera that was in my bag broke from the impact and I had to pay to get it fixed."
Another user said they were body-slammed on one of the platforms in Bank Station.
Police investigating the string of alleged attacks against three men and a woman on the canal path in East London on May 4 have now charged a man with four counts of common assault. Samuel Flowers, 38 from of Commercial Road, Tower Hamlets, appeared at Thames Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Acting Detective Chief Supt Brittany Clarke said: "We are very aware of the concern this has caused in the local community. While we have a man in custody, local officers will continue to patrol around the canal and surrounding areas."
The body-slamming incidents are believed to part of a wider trend knowing as the 'Bumping Man', which originated in Japan.
A wave of incidents involving men carrying out body-slamming attacks on women at train stations in Japan were first reported on social media in May 2018.
A video of a man carrying out repeated ramming attacks targeted at women in the Shinjuku Station precinct spread on Twitter and YouTube.
A 49-year-old man was arrested at Nijubashimae Station in 2019 after 3 women were injured.
In July 2020, a 45-year-old man was arrested after 6 women were harmed at Kamata Station.
Experts in Japan have reported that these assaults are a form of stress relief where the attacker targets people who are weaker than themselves.
