The Metropolitan Police is institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic according to an independent review of the London force’s standards of behaviour and internal culture.
Baroness Casey’s scathing report makes “embarrassing” reading for the Met’s commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who has apologised to Londoners.
Casey said that a “boys’ club culture is rife” and the Met Police could be broken up if it does not improve.
Sir Mark described the report as “ghastly” adding: “You sit down and read that report and it generates a whole series of emotions. It generates anger, frustration, embarrassment.”
The review found that a Sikh officer’s beard had been cut by colleagues “because it was funny”, and that initiation tests included making a female officer eat a whole cheesecake until she vomited.
Following the investigation into Charing Cross police officers who were found to have shared misogynist and racist messages on WhatsApp, other officers had been encouraged to delete social media messages “to protect themselves”.
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Rape and serious sexual assault cases were dropped because fridges and freezers were “over-stuffed, dilapidated or broken”.
Casey was appointed to review the Met’s culture and standards in the wake of the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 by Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer.
During Casey’s review David Carrick, another Met police officer, was convicted as one of the country’s most prolific sexual offenders.
The report says: “None of this should have happened. Enough was known about both men to have stopped them so much earlier.”
It was “those crimes, and those betrayals of trust”, that led Casey being appointed to review the Met.
The report found that Met officers are 82% white and 71% male, and the majority do not live in the city they police. “As such, the Met does not look like the majority of Londoners,” it says.
No workforce plan
Casey’s 363-page report found systemic, fundamental problems in how the Met is run. “There is no workforce plan, no strategic assessment of the needs and skills of the organisation, and demand modelling is outdated. Recruitment and vetting systems are poor and fail to guard against those who seek power in order to abuse it. There has been no central record of training, so officers may well be in roles which they are not trained for.
“The management of people is poor. The Met’s processes do not effectively root out bad officers, help to tackle mediocre officers, or truly support and develop good officers.”
The review also found that the Met has not managed the integrity of its own police service. “Policing will attract those who wish to abuse the powers conferred by a warrant card. The Met has not taken this fact seriously. Its vetting processes are not vigilant in identifying clear warning signs such as previous indecent exposure or domestic abuse from applicant officers. Transferees from other forces are trusted to be good enough. Periodic re-vetting has been perfunctory, and self-declarations are relied upon.”
Policing will attract those who wish to abuse the powers conferred by a warrant card. The Met has not taken this fact seriously” – Baroness Casey
The report found that concerns raised through the misconduct or complaints process are not well recorded and are more likely to be dismissed than acted upon.
The report said the Met’s HR function was not meeting the needs of the organisation. HR had been outsourced and was consequently “too distant from local policing needs”.
Reductions in the number of full-time civilian staff, including in HR, had created higher administrative burdens for officers and reduced levels of specialist support. The report noted that there were fewer HR professionals than required to “confidently” address the issues the Met is facing.
Poor culture
Baroness Casey said that not enough had changed since 1999’s Macpherson report, published six years after the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence, which labelled the Met “institutionally racist”.
She quoted Sir Robert Mark, who when he became Commissioner in 1972, said he had “never experienced… blindness, arrogance and prejudice on anything like the scale accepted as routine in the Met”.
The review said: “We have found those cultures alive and well. We want to be crystal clear that we are not saying everyone within the organisation behaves in these ways, but that these are the prevailing and default cultures: ‘the way we do things’.”
Casey added that, worryingly, some of the worst cultures, behaviours and practices were found in specialist firearms units, where standards should be at their “absolute highest”.
Sir Mark said he felt a level of pride that his officers spoke out: “It is our men and women, who care about policing in London, who have given most of the evidence of that report to Baroness Casey, which is testament to their commitment.”
He said: “To be part of an organisation that has let individuals down so badly is deeply upsetting. And that’s where part of my own motivation comes from.
“Because we have to right this wrong. We have to deal with these cultural problems. And the vast majority of my colleagues are up for this.”
Another conclusion in the report found that “keeping your head down, looking the other way, and telling people – especially senior officers – what they want to hear is the way things are done in the Met.
“The culture of not speaking up has become so ingrained that even when senior officers actively seek candid views, there is a reluctance to speak up.”
There is a profound culture across the Met that incentivises people to look, act and sound the same, and a resistance to difference”
Widespread bullying
The report found widespread bullying, particularly of those with protected characteristics. One in five (22%) staff and officers experienced bullying. “There is a profound culture across the Met that incentivises people to look, act and sound the same, and a resistance to difference,” wrote Casey.
One in five lesbian, gay and bisexual Met employees have personally experienced homophobia and 30% of LGBTQ+ employees have said they had been bullied.
In a series of recommendations the Casey review found an organisation that needs not just a series of changes that have been called for numerous times in the past, or even a root and branch set of reforms to meet its responsibilities to Londoners, but a “complete overhaul and a new approach to restore public trust and confidence and earn back consent from women, black communities and the rest of London”.
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Casey concluded that if sufficient progress is not made, more radical, structural options, such as dividing up the Met into national, specialist and London-focused responsibilities, should be considered.
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