The view that rape allegations are mostly the result of “regretful sex” was denounced as “completely unacceptable” on Thursday as London Mayor Sadiq Khan backed a probe into whether the Met Police’s former acting commissioner used the term.
Sir Stephen House, the former deputy commissioner who led Scotland Yard in the wake of Cressida Dick’s resignation last year, is alleged by a Home Office adviser to have dismissed the bulk of rape complaints as “regretful sex” during a meeting intended to improve the police response to predatory offenders and the treatment of victims.
He denies the claim but has been referred by the Met to the Independent Office for Police Conduct so it can investigate and recommend potential sanctions if misconduct is established.
The claim has raised fresh concerns about attitudes within the Met in the wake of the convictions of serial rapist David Carrick and Sarah Everard’s rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens and a further cases of misogyny and crimes committed by officers against women.
On Thursday, as the Women’s Equality Party called for a statutory inquiry into misogyny in policing, City Hall said Mr Khan wanted the allegation against Sir Stephen to be investigated thoroughly as part of efforts to rebuild public confidence in policing.
“The language attributed to a senior Met officer is completely unacceptable and it is right that the full circumstances of this matter will now be independently examined by the IOPC,” a spokeswoman for Mr Khan said.
“The Mayor is clear that we must do everything we can to encourage victims of rape to come forward and a key part of achieving that is rebuilding public confidence and trust in the police… and holding the Met to account in making the deep-rooted and systemic changes needed to improve rape investigations, so that all victims have confidence that they will be supported.”
The allegation against Sir Stephen, a veteran officer who led Police Scotland before being recruited by Dame Cressida to become her deputy, was made on Channel 4 News by Professor Betsy Stanko, an academic appointed by the Home Office to conduct a review into how to improve rape investigations.
“It felt as if he [Sir Stephen] was trying to minimise what the problem was, not taking it seriously. He used terms to describe — or a term to describe — what he thought the bulk of the rape complaints were, which was the term ‘regretful sex’,” Professor Stanko told the programme.
She added: “The only way I understand the term regretful sex — and it was said by officers elsewhere, in the other forces we visited and researched — it is something about the victim. The victim is mistaken. That faultline of forcible sex, which is rape, was not crossed because it must have been confusion. The problem was about confusion, not about the facts or the evidence that could have been collected if one was trying to investigate a rape.”
Sir Stephen strongly denied using the phrase “regretful sex” and said: “I find the phrase abhorrent.”His replacement at the Met, Deputy Commissioner Dame Lynne Owens, said Scotland Yard had referred the allegation to the IOPC as the phrase was “wholly unacceptable”.
