The Metropolitan Police artificially boosted the number of
non-white officers serving on the force in figures submitted to the Home
Office.
Figures for visible ethnic minority recruitment were increased
after officers who would previously been considered white were reclassified.
Statistics released by the force last year appeared to show
it had recruited an additional 218 non-white officers in six months, bringing
its total to 1,227.
But the increase included 214 officers who described
themselves as “white Irish” and “other whites” as members of visible ethnic
minorities.
The Home Office revealed that without the inclusion of the
bogus figures the Metropolitan police would have had a drop in non-white
officers in the six months to September 2000.
By Ben Willmott
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