BY MEGHANN BIGG

A YOUNG designer has developed a personal safety device after a woman was sexually assaulted outside her student accommodation.

Rebecca Pick, 22, hopes her new invention will help prevent future attacks, and also lower the nationwide statistic of 80,262 sexual offences reported to the police last year.

There are many apps out there which help to make you feel safe. However, it is not always easy to get your phone or device out in a struggle. So with that fact, Rebecca created a design that lets you clip the alarm onto a bra strap or a belt – making it more discreet for women.

It is described as a ‘lightweight, discreet, personal attack and lone working alarm’. When you activate it, it will connect to a smartphone to a central monitoring station that will be able to listen and assess the situation as it happens.

They then send that information to the police along with your GPS location, who respond as a high priority response.

It also informs friends and family about your situation so that they know where you are, the monitoring station also records all the dialogue, which can be used in court to help secure a conviction.

The interactivity of the app helps to make it more personal for the women using it.

However, security expert Kristy Henderson, founder of Personal Safety London, says these apps are not reliable.

As a young woman, I do think that the initial idea is a good one however, in my opinion is in the wrong form. There does need to be some safety device that helps women, as this situation is something that is common in a lot of people’s lives.