North Yorkshire student, 17, wins prestigious University of Cambridge award for pioneering film following the death of Sarah Everard

Eve Maylor, 17, a Ripon Grammar School student, has received national recognition for creating a new documentary exploring gender discrimination in France and Spain.

Eve said the idea of the documentary was spawned as a response following the murder of Sarah Everard from York.

Ms Everard, 33, a marketing executive who is originally from York, was killed in March after disappearing while walking home in Clapham, South London. Pc Wayne Couzens, of the London force, pleaded guilty to the kidnap and rape of Ms Everard at the Old Bailey earlier this month.

Following Ms Everard's disappearance women across the country took to social media to discuss their own experiences of walking the streets and the lengths they went to to feel safe. Out poured stories of being followed, harassed, catcalled, assaulted and exposed to.

Eve, from Ripon, said she wanted to discover more about how this level of gender prejudice translated to other countries and cultures.

For research she spoke to French and Spanish students on the HelloTalk app to discover more about their experiences. The youngster had discovered the app - which allows her to talk with native French and Spanish speakers - in lockdown.

Ms Maylor said: "I then came up with the idea of using my app to interview some of the new friends I had made overseas about their experiences in their own countries.

“In general, I found both France and Spain appear similar regarding progression of women’s rights."

Judges praised how Eve, placed second in the highly competitive competition, had managed to create an original research study about sex discrimination in two different countries despite lockdown restrictions.

One of the judges, Dr Hugues Azérad praised Eve’s documentary for being brilliantly edited, emotional and sharp.

He said: “It was very creative with fantastic mixing of images and music, all sombre and powerful. It impresses for all the good reasons: topic, creativity, depth and range.”

Dr Ares Llop-Naya, another of the judges, added: “The author’s maturity in developing such appealing research, as well as their mastery of both French and Spanish and their capacity to carry out the data gathering process in both languages should be highlighted.”

Eve, who also produced an 850-word report on gender discrimination, added she gained great female friendship and empowerment from the project and added more encouraging should be given to young people to take up foreign languages in school.

She said: “The app has completely changed my life. I was absolutely over the moon to win a prize like this. I struggle sometimes with believing in my language ability.

"The most valuable thing I obtained from my project was friendship. I love being able to communicate and form relationships with those from other countries by speaking in their language."

“I have always disliked the expectation for others to be able to speak English.

"I strongly believe there should be a stronger emphasis on improving our linguistic skills in British schools."

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