Metropolitan police leaders who have turned a blind eye to racist and misogynist behaviour at Scotland Yard are just as responsible as the perpetrators, the force’s commissioner has said.
Sir Mark Rowley vowed to root out those behind the “appalling” culture after a damning review exposed massive failings in how a force weighed down by “systemic” racism and misogyny dealt with wrongdoing in its ranks.
“If you’re a leader, anything that you don’t act on, you’re as guilty as the offender. That that you walk by, you endorse,” Rowley told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday. “I’m deadly serious about this. We’re going to raise our game we’re going to be more ruthless and we’re going to root these people out.”
He said findings that senior officers might not only fob off complainants of inappropriate behaviour, but join in themselves were “appalling” and admitted the force needed better leadership.
Rowley said there wre likely to be hundreds of serving Met police officers who should have been sacked for their behaviour. That came after the Casey report found that officers suspected of serious criminal offences, including sexual assault and domestic abuse, were being allowed to escape justice.
Casey was commissioned by the Met in the wake of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer. It revealed Met officers and staff trying to fight toxic colleagues were betrayed by the force’s discipline system and that black officers were 81% more likely to face disciplinary action, and new recruits from minority ethnic background were more than 120% more likely to be fired than their white counterparts.
Speaking to the BBC, Rowley said hearing the personal stories behind the report had deeply affected him. “It makes you angry and it brings a tear to your eye to hear some of these stories and to speak to some colleagues who have suffered such racist or misogynistic behaviour in the organisation; it’s been badly dealt with.
“You speak to some colleagues and what they’ve gone through and you see their continuing dedication to serving the public, it is really humbling.”
He said he intended to go after racist and misogynistic officers in the same way British policing sought to tackle links between police and organised crime in the past.
“Policing had bigger problems in the past with corruption, where it was relationships perhaps between detectives and criminals. And we’ve had a big effect on that over the last two or three decades. That was using counter-crime tactics to go after those police officers.
“We now need to see this for what it is; this misogyny, this racism. And it undermines our integrity just as badly as those things and we should be using the same tactics; sting operations, surveillance, all that you would expect to find these individuals and root them out.”
Casey told the same programme: “I’m really hoping that the Metropolitan police and everybody that supports it sees today’s report as a line in the sand. I’m very conscious that previous people have made similar findings, but what is shocking is that between 2013 and 2021 the move in terms of black officers and Asian officers disproportionately being more likely to be the subject of the misconduct system has not moved far enough.
“It was 100% in 2013 for black officers and staff, and it’s 81% in 2021, so it’s moved, but, goodness knows, that is still an appalling statistic. I’ve had countless officers say to me that the misconduct is not good enough, they don’t like it, and they have to see today as a line in the sand.”
