Huge failings in the way Britain’s biggest power tackles injustice have been revealed in a report by Louise Casey, which found “systemic” racism at the Met and misogyny. One officer faced 11 claims, including sexual assault, harassment and domestic abuse, but remains on the force, according to the report. The new Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said he may not yet have the power to remove him and will ask the government for the power to reopen previous cases. Rowley said he was disappointed by the findings and apologized to officers and members of the public who had been disappointed, and said the number of officers and staff fired each year, between 30 and 50, was “very under-engineered ” and estimated that there are hundreds of officers in the Met who should be sacked from the force. “You have to come to the conclusion that there must be hundreds of people who shouldn’t be here, who need to be thrown out,” Rowley said. “There must be hundreds who are behaving disgracefully, undermining our integrity and need to be ejected.” Lady Casey was commissioned by the Met in the wake of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer. This was her interim report which focused squarely on the Met’s disciplinary system and complaints from officers and staff about their colleagues. It reveals that Met officers and staff trying to fight their toxic colleagues have been betrayed by the force’s disciplinary system and fear an ‘anything goes’ culture. The findings are among the worst faced by any police force and Rowley said he felt shame and anger reading the report and discussions with female and ethnic minority staff about their experiences had brought him to tears. He added that the report showed the Met was “very weak” in tackling offenses in the ranks. Black officers were 81% more likely to face disciplinary action and recruits were over 120% more likely to be fired than their white counterparts, who were actually protected by a broken system. The worst could be next year, with the full Casey report expected next year, as is another government-ordered report, and other major scandals likely to become public. The report shows that officers and staff complain when they do complain about wrongdoing and are reluctant to do so because they fear nothing will be done or retaliation – and Casey said they are right to feel that way. Casey said, “There are times when I’ve looked at cases with people I’ve heard of and wondered what exactly would constitute a serious offense to get them out of violence.” Casey looked at data and cases from 2013 onwards and among her findings were: Around 55% to 60% of allegations made by Met officers, staff or their families get no chance to respond to a decision, which is higher than in other forces. For allegations of discrimination, fewer than three in 10 are upheld, as are allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against colleagues. Casey said: “This leaves many officers and staff in the Met to conclude that biased behavior is not actually a breach of professional standards and reinforces a sense of ‘anything goes’. Supervisors steer officers and staff away from raising concerns. As of 2013, 1,809 officers and staff had more than one complaint against them and only 13 (0.71%) had been fired. Many misconduct cases are handled by overstretched local units without proper training. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Local surveys of officers in 2021 found that between 22% and 47% had experienced unwanted sexual displays or touching, sexism and misogyny. The report follows others which have highlighted serious wrongdoing and called for reform, most notably the Macpherson report in 1999 which found that institutional racism helped the racist killers of Stephen Lawrence escape justice. Casey said: “Unfortunately [more than] 20 years after Macpherson, there remains clear racial inequality and systemic bias throughout the system, and within that there is clear evidence of misogyny.” Mr Rowley said progress had been made but was “grossly inadequate” and said: “I can only apologize profusely to the officers and members of the public who have been let down in this way. We have failed as a police service to show zero tolerance for racism, misogyny, homophobia and ableism and that shames us and clearly previous claims that we are a zero tolerance organization were premature.” The defensiveness and widespread perception that previous Commissioner Cressida Dick was in denial led to her ouster in February. The Guardian understands that Rowley knew while Dick was commissioner that things were going very wrong at the Met. He said the Casey report highlighted failings, bias and corruption worse than he had feared. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who ousted Dick because he believed it did not have a strong enough plan to deal with scandals engulfing the force, said: “I was concerned that a serious cultural problem had developed at the Met which allowed racist, sexist and homophobic behavior. be downgraded or left unchallenged. The interim findings of this review not only confirm my concerns, but reveal a situation even worse than I feared.” Home Secretary Suella Braverman has announced a review of how toxic officers are allowed to remain in the force, saying: “Culture and standards in the police need to improve. And where an officer falls seriously short of those expectations, demonstrable public action must be taken.” Rowley fully accepted the findings and promised urgent and sweeping reforms, including a strengthened anti-corruption mandate, revealed by the Guardian last month, and a trawl of past complaints to see if those who avoided sanction can be deported . He said a culture change was needed and pledged to create an “anti-racist” service. Rowley said the courage, determination and heroism of the majority of officers were reasons for hope and promised big and radical changes: “I am determined to do this and I am optimistic that we will succeed.” The force is in special measures after trust during Dick’s tenure fell to 49% in a key measure following a series of scandals that threatened the force’s legitimacy.
