At 15 pages, the police watchdog report into misconduct at Charing Cross Police Station is not much longer than Sue Gray’s, but it is filled with genuinely jaw-dropping detail about police behaviour.
In it, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), concludes that Scotland Yard must overhaul its culture of sexism, racism, bullying and homophobia.
Operation Hotton was sparked in March 2018 following allegations that an officer had sex in a police station with a drunk woman. The IOPC then took over an internal Met investigation.
It subsequently found text and WhatsApp messages between officers which were highly sexualised, discriminatory or referred to violence, which officers often defended as ‘banter’.
Given the seriousness of some of the conversations and the overall conclusions from the report, I think it is important to share some of the messages the IOPC collected. [Trigger warning for domestic violence and rape.]
Examples from a WhatsApp conversation between two police officers:
- Officer 1: “And my bird won't stop taking the piss. Swear to got [sic] I'm going to smack her [smiling emoji]”
- Officer 2: “Slap her one…say you didn’t”
- Officer 1: “I`ll f*****g do it. She's f****d off home.”
Messages sent by a male officer to a female officer include:
- “I would happily rape you”
- “if I was single I would actually hate f**k you”
- “if I was single I would happily chloroform you”
Although the team at Charing Cross has since been disbanded, the IOPC said it believed “these incidents are not isolated or simply the behaviour of a few bad apples”.
The IOPC conclusions are of course especially damaging in the aftermath of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Met firearms officer Wayne Couzens last March.
The Met apologised for the officers’ behaviour, saying it was “deeply sorry to Londoners and everyone they have failed with their appalling conduct”.
Sadiq Khan commented that while he welcomed the IOPC’s findings, more action was needed and that he had been clear with Commissioner Cressida Dick “about the scale of change that’s needed to rebuild trust with Londoners”.
You can find the 15 recommendations for the Met here and the full report here.
Elsewhere in the paper, it’s not just you... Covid reinfection rates have spiked since the Omicron variant emerged. The figures jumped from 1.4 per cent prior to November 16 2021 to 10 per cent at present.
In the comment pages, sea air, sunset superpads... it’s all about moving to the seaside, but Features Editor Phoebe Luckhurst is staying put, if only to avoid being too cliché to function.
Meanwhile, Arts Editor Nancy Durrant was considering ditching her New York Times subscription so she could help pay heat her flat. But now the Gray Lady has acquired Wordle, she’ll hang on for that daily shot of smugness.
And finally, can you have a meaningful life in the metaverse? (Also, question for a friend: What is it?) Amy Francombe asks whether we’re ready to go fully immersive.
