LONDON — The Duchess of Cambridge joined hundreds who gathered in south London on Saturday to honor the memory of Sarah Everard, a young British woman whose kidnapping and killing shocked a nation.

Gatherings for Everard were officially canceled after talks between organizers and the police broke down over disagreements about legality and the safety of groups of people meeting.

But that didn’t stop people from coming. Throughout the day, hundreds poured into Clapham Common, a large urban park in south London, to pay their respects, lay flowers and pause for a moment of silence. Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was last seen March 3 and is thought to have been abducted nearby. Her body was formally identified Friday.

People gathered in socially distanced fashion around a bandstand in the center of the park. Kate, Duchess of Cambridge was among those who stood silently before a sea of floral tributes and handwritten notes.

People gather, at the band stand in Clapham Common, in memory of Sarah Everard, after an official vigil was cancelled, in London, Saturday. A serving British police officer accused of the kidnap and murder of a woman in London has appeared in court for the first time. Wayne Couzens, 48, is charged with kidnapping and killing 33-year-old Sarah Everard, who went missing while walking home from a friend’s apartment in south London on March 3. Frank Augstein/Associated Press

One read: “It could have been any one of us – I’m so sorry it was you.” Another read: “Men, do better, protect all women.”

Yet another: “How can we feel safe when the police are to blame?”

Reclaim These Streets, the organizers of the canceled vigil, encouraged people to shine a light, candle, torch or phone at 9.30 p.m., the last time Everard was seen alive.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in a tweet that he’d be taking part along with his fiancee. “Tonight Carrie and I will be lighting a candle for Sarah Everard and thinking of her family and friends. I cannot imagine how unbearable their pain and grief is. We must work fast to find all the answers to this horrifying crime.”

The case has stunned the nation, not least because the man charged with killing Everard is a serving police officer. Wayne Couzens, 48, appeared before Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Saturday charged with kidnapping and murder.

The case has also caused a national reckoning over women’s safety and prompted a discussion among women about what it’s like to walk alone, particularly at night. Many have demanded change and called for an end to victim blaming.

People gather, at the band stand in Clapham Common, in memory of Sarah Everard, after an official vigil was cancelled, in London, Saturday. Frank Augstein/Associated Press

For residents of Clapham, it feels especially personal: they have walked along the same streets Everard did, through the same park that’s popular with exercisers, past the bandstand, the largest in London, that hosts open-air concerts in the summer. It could have been them.

“It touched a nerve, really, that it really could have just been me,” said Lucy Davies, 24, who once lived on the road where Everard was last seen. Davies said she takes precautions when traveling alone at night: She texts friends when she’s leaving and uses ‘find friends’ on her phone. But now she wonders whether more can be done.

“Today is important for all the days following to stop girls from feeling unsafe in areas, and maybe what men can do to help us feel a bit safer,” she said.

Another local resident, Emily Ramsey, 28, said she’s now rethinking how she travels at night. “You go for dinner, after work, get on the tube, it’s 10 p.m. and you walk home for 10, 15 minutes. You don’t think anything of it. Now, I’d probably ask my boyfriend to meet me and walk with me.”

She said that the suggestion floated by some commentators that men should have a curfew was wrong. “I don’t think that’s the right solution. It’s no one’s fault, but maybe some men don’t appreciate we’re always glancing over our shoulder, you just have to hear footsteps a bit close and you automatically freeze. Hopefully this has made men a bit more aware,” she said.

Sophie Johnson, 28, who lives nearby, said that since Everard’s disappearance, she hasn’t walked outside at night by herself. She added that it wasn’t fair that the onus be placed on women. “We’re already doing all the right things. We walk in sensible shoes, have our keys out, don’t listen to music with both earphones, we’re already doing all those things.”

She said that the case has prompted a larger discussion among her male friends about what more they can do, like “cross the street or fake a phone call to seem noisy and you’re not sneaking up – it’s prompted a lot more conversation.”

Ryan Salisbury, 29, an art director, traveled 40 minutes in from Hampshire to pay his respects. He said it was “important that there is a visual presence of people today to show that this kind of thing is not acceptable.”

He added: “I have to accept that my privilege, as a man, (is) I’ll never experience the full extent of what that feeling is like. My heart goes out to every woman who has experienced that, even on a daily basis, that misogyny and discrimination … I want to be here to represent that’s not OK, that’s not 2021.”