Report finds London police officers were 'getting away' with misconduct, criminal behavior

By Karim El-Bar

LONDON (AA) – A new report released Monday found that hundreds of police officers in London’s Metropolitan Police Service were “getting away both with misconduct but also criminal behavior” without being fired.

The report was carried out by Baroness Louise Casey following the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, who was a serving police officer at the time of the crime. The case shocked the nation.

Her report investigated the Met from April 2013 until March 2022. Today’s report was an interim one, with the full findings due to be published next year.

In a letter to Sir Mark Rowley, the new head of the Met, Baroness Casey said “cases are taking too long to resolve, allegations are more likely to be dismissed than acted upon, the burden on those raising concerns is too heavy, and there is racial disparity across the system, with white officers dealt with less harshly than Black or Asian officers.”

She said the Met’s misconduct process was “not fit for purpose.”

This was because, among other reasons, there were a low number of dismissals for gross misconduct as the bar was set too high, with less than 1% of repeat offenders being sacked between 2013 and 2022, she outlined in her letter. Cases also took an average of 400 days to be resolved, with 20% of cases taking more than two years to be completed.

One case mentioned in the report showed an officer who was allowed to continue in their post despite 11 cases of misconduct being raised against them, including allegations of abuse, assault and sexual harassment.

The report also said that data suggested there was racial discrimination at play, with Black officers 81% more likely and Asian officers 55% more likely to have cases brought against them than white officers in 2021-22.

Baroness Casey laid out six recommendations in her letter to Rowley.

They were: to reduce the time taken for cases to be resolved; to investigate and remove more repeat offenders; to bring more offences within the remit of gross misconduct and dismissal; to increase human resources supporting the misconduct process; to review a probation rule that means non-white officers are far more likely to be dismissed, and to better support the units responsible for resolving cases at a local level.

- Response

Rowley said he wanted to sack hundreds of police officers who have been allowed to stay in the force despite misconduct, following the release of the report.

Sir Mark, who took up his position last month, said the report was “appalling” and pledged to use “ruthless” tactics to sack police officers, including sting operations and treating high-ranking police officers as “guilty as the offender” if they ignore bad behavior by those under their command.

Baroness Casey said that it would be her “worst nightmare” if the report were to just “sit on the shelf.”

The head of the Met was determined not to let that happen, however.

“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 misogynist behavior in the organization and it’s been badly dealt with,” he said.

“We have been far, far too weak in our approach. There must be hundreds of officers we need to be getting rid of over the forthcoming years. You need to take this much more rounded, determined, head-on approach, that actually this person shouldn’t be here, let’s look at the picture of everything they’re up (to) and let’s work out what’s the best way to build the case that leads to them being thrown out.”

“This misogyny, this racism. It undermines our integrity just as badly. We should be using the same tactics: sting operations, surveillance, all that you would expect to find these officers and root them out,” he added.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said “the public rightly expects the highest standards of behavior from police officers, and the vast majority meet this expectation.”

“But recently, too many high-profile incidents and reports, especially in London, have damaged trust – which is unfair on the public and lets down other serving officers.”