London Police Chief Apologizes For The Conduct of His Cops~Results of Undercover Investigation
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| Rory was under intense surveillance himself as he secretly filmed in the station |
Rory was a journalism graduate who had worked in PR. He had completed an online application - not mentioning, of course, that he was working for Panorama - and passed vetting.
After a job interview, Rory, then 28, was accepted for a job as a detention officer in Charing Cross custody suite, helping to make sure detainees were fed, watered, and kept safe.(BBC)
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| Undercover filming reveals racism and misogyny in the Met Police |
Before he started, Rory knew all about the station's reputation.
New York Times
London’s police chief apologized on Wednesday after an undercover reporter filmed officers making sexualized comments, reveling in the use of violence and expressing racist views.
“The behavior depicted in this program is reprehensible and completely unacceptable,” Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police of London, said in a statement. He added, “I am truly sorry.”
The footage, part of a documentary about police conduct broadcast by the BBC on Wednesday, has renewed the pressure on a force still reeling after a number of previous scandals that shook public confidence in British policing.
In the video, one officer could be seen making dismissive comments about accusations of rape and domestic violence made by a pregnant woman, while another described enthusiastically how he had seen a colleague stamp on a suspect’s leg.
A third officer told the undercover reporter, while socializing in a pub, that a person who had overstayed his visa and been detained should have had “a bullet through his head.”
Nine officers and one staff member have now been suspended, the police said on Wednesday. Two other officers had been removed from frontline duties pending investigations into the issues raised by the film.
The conduct exposed in the broadcast appeared at odds with claims by the leadership of the Metropolitan Police that it has been rooting out misogyny, racism and other toxic behavior after the 2021 murder of a London woman, Sarah Everard, by a police officer.
Her killing shocked Britons, prompting a broader debate about violence against women, and raising questions about the culture that had been allowed to thrive within the ranks of the country’s police.
A review commissioned after Ms. Everard’s death concluded that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally sexist, misogynistic, racist and homophobic.
Based on the scenes filmed by the BBC, some of that behavior appears to persist. The broadcaster’s undercover reporter, Rory Bibb, spent seven months working in a civilian role in the Charing Cross police station, in the heart of London. The building contains a facility known as a custody suite, where people are held after arrest and before they are charged or released.
The revelations are especially damaging to the Metropolitan Police because the same station was at the heart of a scandal several years ago over claims of bullying and discrimination.
In 2022 the Independent Office for Police Conduct, or I.O.P.C., a police watchdog, found that some officers there had joked about rape and exchanged offensive messages on private chat groups.
Shortly after that finding, the police commissioner at the time resigned, saying that she had “no choice” after London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, had made it clear to her he had lost confidence in her leadership.
When Mr. Rowley was appointed in 2022, he said that his mission was “to lead the renewal of policing by consent which has been so heavily dented in recent years as trust and confidence have fallen.”
In his statement on Wednesday, Mr. Rowley said that, as commissioner, he had been “candid about the systemic, cultural, leadership and regulatory failings that have allowed misogyny, racism and a lack of public service ethos to put down deep roots.”
He added: “We are partway into conducting what is already the biggest corruption clear-out in British policing history. We are relentlessly arresting and sacking officers and staff with 11 forced out each week — more than triple the rate of the previous weak approaches that left this toxic legacy behind.”
Rachel Watson, director general of the I.O.P.C., said her organization was investigating the new evidence from the BBC documentary.
“The I.O.P.C. is charged with independently investigating the most serious allegations of police misconduct and our investigation is already underway,” she said in a statement. “We have served gross misconduct notices on nine officers, one retired officer and a member of staff. One officer has also been informed they will be criminally investigated.”
The scenes exposed in the undercover film were condemned by the Police Federation of England and Wales, which represents more than 145,000 officers. “We are deeply concerned by reports about the behavior of nine Metropolitan Police officers at Charing Cross police station,” it said in a statement.
It added, “The nature of those allegations would, if accurate, describe conduct that is not only utterly unacceptable both in and outside of policing but also gravely impacts the public trust every police officer in the country depends on to do his or her job effectively.”
Britain’s home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, described the scenes in the footage as “disturbing” and “sickening,” and welcomed the I.O.P.C. investigation.
“It is right that the Metropolitan Police have condemned this, and we fully support their pledge to root out those unfit to serve the public,” she added in a statement.
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