The Met Police Don’t Investigate Crimes
The Metropolitan Police claim it is their goal to be the “most trusted police service in the world,” in a year in which confidence in the police has reached a new low. Several things seem to be holding them back — their abysmal investigative record, for one. There has been criticism after criticism of the Metropolitan Police for the past century, ranging from right-leaning sympathies to institutional corruption and racism to using their powerful positions to murder. In light of the ever-intensifying scrutiny of the institution, this Author seeks to discover what it is the Met does.
Warning: this article includes discussions of antisemitism, homophobia, murder, misogyny, police brutality, rape, racism, sexual assault, and violence.
Established by Robert Peel in 1829 under the Metropolitan Police Act of 1829, the current iteration of the Met was consolidated ten years later by the Metropolitan Police Act 1839. They were unpopular, nicknamed ‘Raw Lobsters’ and ‘Blue Devils’, referencing the blue colour of their uniforms, as well as ‘Peel’s Bloody Gang’. Many members of the police were members of Freemason lodges. This issue created many a conflict of interest, contrary to the oath for the Office of Constable.
One such example of the conflict of interest can be found in the case of the Whitechapel murders (1888), perpetrated by ‘Jack the Ripper’. In a case where female victims were written off as prostitutes, the police failed to catch the killer. Bruce Robinsor, They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper, and Hallie Rubenhold, The Five: The Untold Live of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper, suggest that this was indicative both of the corruption of the police force and the misogynistic attitudes within it. In The Five, Rubenhold posits that the reason that ‘Jack’ was able to get away with his crimes without making a sound was that the women were sleeping: they were, barring Mary Jane Kelly, who was killed in her bed, homeless. Their status as working-class women and the police and newspapers painting them as prostitutes — a group systemically under-protected and exploited by the police —meant that their murders were not adequately investigated. There are also the accusations of institutional corruption: suggesting that ‘Jack the Ripper’, really Michael Maybrick, got away with murder because of his Masonic connections.
The Goulston Street graffito was washed off at the order of Police Superintendent Thomas Arnold after he claimed to be worried by its antisemitic message. It has been transcribed as variations on: “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing”. It was removed before photographic evidence could be taken. However, the police were perpetrators of antisemitism, often using antisemitic stereotypes to describe perpetrators of crimes, and preferred their perpetrators to be foreigners or Jews. Robinson quotes Havelock Ellis’s 1890 book The Criminal, in which Ellis describes a murderer as: “… a sort of abortion, bent and wrinkled, with an earthy complexion, stealthy eyes … a beard framing a yellow bilious face of cunning … [the] forehead is low, the hair black and thrown backwards …”. Anyone familiar with antisemitic dog-whistles can therefore extrapolate that Superintendent Arnold’s ‘worry’ was likely exaggerated.
Robinson suggests this Arnold’s exaggeration resulted from widespread Freemasonry within the police force. In They All Love Jack, Robinson contends that ‘Jack the Ripper’ was the singer and composer Michael Maybrick. The latter working under the name of Stephen Adams. The name Maybrick, you may have heard in connection with James Maybrick, Michael’s brother, following the discovery of the so-called ‘Ripper Diary’ by builders renovating his former home in 1992. Robinson suggests that not just Superintendent Arnold was eager to remove the message from the wall, but Commissioner Sir Charles Warren.
Why does Robinson suggest this? Because the word “Juwes” does not refer to the Jewish inhabitants of the East End of London but is a reference to Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum, the assassins central in Masonic legend. He said in a 2015 interview with GQ magazine that “Freemasonry … denied any connection with the Ripper for 130 years … [but] these women were all murdered according to Masonic ritual. Throats cut across, abdomens ripped open, guts slung over their shoulders, every piece of metal taken off them and placed nearby.”
The relationship between the police force and Freemasons came under intense scrutiny in the 1960s (source: The Conversation). This, following investigative journalism conducted by The Times and The Sunday Times, revealing high levels of institutional corruption in the Metropolitan Police’s CID unit. Police shared membership of the same Masonic lodges as high-profile criminals. The Conversation states that this led to “major reforms of the Metropolitan Police,” with criminal investigations resulting in “custodial sentences for a number of senior CID officers and voluntary retirements for many more” and that now the organisation has “marginal, if any, influence on policing”.
The Battle of Cable Street on the 4th of October 1936 is an example of the right-leaning sympathies of the Metropolitan Police. The battle was between police officers sent to protect the march of the British Union of Fascists (BUF) march led by Oswald Mosley and various anti-fascist demonstrators. The 250,000 strong anti-fascist groups included Communists, Anarchists, British Jews, trade unionists, gangsters led by Jack ‘Spot’ Comer, Socialist groups, and homosexuals.
There were concerns voiced by those on the Left about police sympathies towards the BUF. Many officers were “avowedly anti-Communist”. The BUF was made to retreat by the anti-fascist protestors. At which point the 10,000 police, some on horseback, engaged in running battles with the anti-fascists. There is “no record” of any baton being used against the BUF, though they were used on numerous occasions on anti-fascist demonstrators.
Nothing is more indicative of Met and Conservative attitudes to working-class people than their collaboration on suppressing the Miners’ Strikes. One such confrontation was the Battle of Orgreave (Monday, 18th of June 1984). Fought between picketers and the South Yorkshire Police and other police forces, most significantly the Metropolitan Police, Orgreave was a critical event in the 1984–85 Miners’ Strike and the biggest industrial dispute in Post-War Britain.
The police claimed that the officers filmed beating miners with truncheons and charging on horses were “defending themselves”. Reporting in broadcast and print media supported this narrative: claiming that it had been a riot by miners against police, rather than the orchestrated attack on miners that it was. Margaret Thatcher called striking miners and those that supported them “the enemy within”. However, just over a year later, in July 1985, the trial of 15 miners charged with riot and unlawful assembly collapsed and cases against 80 other miners were dropped.
In the Summer of 2015, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) stated that it would “not be in the public interest” to launch a full investigation into claims that police used “excessive force” against miners and perjured themselves in court. Dogs, horses, and riot gear were used against miners. Some of the tactics had been learned from the police in Northern Ireland and Hong Kong. The lines of long-shielded riot police, mounted police, and dog handlers stood beside short-shield snatch squads in order to pursue and attack miners after horses charged down the miners. The injuries were broken bones and, in some cases, fractured skulls.
The April 2017 exposé by The Guardian linked Orgreave and the 1989 Hillsborough disaster as both were policed by the same South Yorkshire Police Force under the same Chief Constable, Peter Wright. It is suggested that because of the aid given to Thatcher by the South Yorkshire Police during the Miners’ Strikes, they were cut some slack during Hillsborough investigations.
One officer, serving at the time, said that the Metropolitan Police who were asked to go to Scotland and northern England during the 1984–85 strike had a “gang mentality” and “thrived on being known as ‘Maggie’s boot boys’”. Documents released in 2017 show that then Home Secretary Leon Brittan wanted to avoid “any form of enquiry into the behaviour of the police”. In the 37 years since the Battle of Orgreave, no one has been held criminally responsible.
The Wapping Dispute of 1986–87 was between the print unions and Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch had secretly built a system to print and distribute all of his newspapers (News of the World, The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times) from a plant in Wapping. As part of the move to Wapping, Murdoch demanded that the unions accept ‘flexible’ working and agree to a no-strike clause. When negotiations between Murdoch and the print unions over conditions in the new plant broke down, and on the 24th of January 1986, nearly 6,000 workers went on strike. Murdoch sacked them. The sacked workers arranged demonstrations and pickets to disrupt Murdoch’s business and fight for their jobs and workers’ rights, which were met by large numbers of the Met Police.
In 1993, three trade unionists assaulted by six Met officers in 1987 were awarded £89,000 in damages following then Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Condon’s admission of liability for the assault, wrongful arrest, imprisonment and malicious prosecution. The six officers, PCs Ian Storrar, Nigel Pratt, Robert Goodger, Gavin Steff, Ivan Szubinb and Terence Chitty, were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The case was thrown out. (Source: Independent)
Notably, Murdoch’s papers were pro-Thatcher, as it was Thatcher’s legislation to curb the power of the unions that helped and legalised Murdoch and the Met’s actions in Wapping.
Following the 1999 inquiry into the racially-motivated murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in 1993, the Metropolitan Police were declared institutionally racist.
Sir William Macpherson, head of the inquiry, said that the police “underplayed or ignored” race relations while investigating the murder and accused officers of refusing to acknowledge that the attack was racially motivated. The findings from the Macpherson Report (1999) were criticised by Sir Paul Condon (Source: The Guardian). However, there was not just a finding of institutional racism, but “professional incompetence … and a failure of leadership”. Clifford Norris, the father of David Norris, one of the four murderers, used a network of corrupt Metropolitan Police Officers to “protect himself and his close relations from justice”.
In a 2014 interview with The Guardian, Sukhdev Reel talks about being surveilled by the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a now-disbanded Scotland Yard undercover unit. Reel’s name appeared in 10 secret reports gathered. At the same time, she campaigned for a better investigation into her son Ricky’s death and vocally criticising the police. Ricky Reel, 20, disappeared in October 1997, following an attack on his group of friends by two white youths who had shouted: “Pakis go home.” When Ricky failed to come home, the family went to the police but began their own search, frustrated with the slow response.
A week later, his body was found in the Thames. The police maintain the claim that he drowned after “falling in the river while going to urinate”. The family have always insisted that Ricky’s phobia of open water meant this was impossible. There was never any forensic analysis where the police believed Ricky fell into the river.
The Reel family maintain he was the victim of a racially-motivated murder and that the police didn’t take his death seriously because he was Asian. Sukhdev was told about the surveillance in 2014 and said: “The thing that kept … coming … [to] mind [during the meeting] was: ‘Now I know why Ricky’s killers are still at large.’ They were … spying on me rather than looking … [T]he fact that the family stood up and started asking questions made it more important for them to spy on us than to carry our a proper investigation.”
At the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, it was revealed by the media that several undercover police officers had entered into sexual relationships with members of groups they were surveilling. In some cases, they proposed marriage and had children with protestors who were utterly unaware their ‘partner’ was a member of the police. Subsequently, eight women sued the Met and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). The units had been disbanded, but cases continued to emerge. In 2015, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was announced. In November 2015, the Met published an apology to the women who had been deceived as part of a settlement of their cases. However, in 2016, new cases continued to emerge.
In 2018, the cosmetics retailer Lush began a campaign to highlight the misconduct of undercover police officers. Then Home Secretary Sajid Javid criticised the campaign, calling it poorly judged and anti-police. The campaign was publicly supported by two ex-wives, whose husbands kept their relationships with activists secret, and the son of an officer whose father kept his true identity hidden from him and his mother for years (Source: The Guardian). However, Lush removed the campaign following continued harassment and intimidation of staff by former police officers.
In 2021, former undercover officer, Graham Coates, told a public inquiry that colleagues made “gross and offensive” jokes about the women they had deceived into sexual relationships. He added that management knew what was going on and did not stop it. David Barr, the inquiry’s QC, has stated that “from the mid-1970s, these relationships were common.” At this moment, the Author would like to point out that there is some precedent for the prosecution of deception of a sexual partner as rape.
In May 2013, Dr Konstancja ‘Koshka’ Duff was detained and strip-searched by Metropolitan Police Officers. This followed her attempt to give a ‘know your rights’ card to a Black 15-year-old during his stop-and-search. She was taken to Stoke Newington police station, where Sergeant Kurtis Howard approved the strip search saying: “She’s resisting. Resistance is futile … treat her like a terrorist, I don’t care”.
They cut her clothes off, and she was left with multiple injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Met held a misconduct hearing in August 2018. Halfway through, Sergeant Howard was cleared of gross misconduct without ever giving evidence. According to his Linkedin, Howard is still serving in the Met. In October 2021, Dr Duff received £6,000 in compensation and an apology letter. She “[doesn’t] believe a word of it”.
In the inquest into the investigation of Stephen Port, the serial killer of four gay men, found a series of failures by Met police officers. No log existed on the Crime Reporting Information System (Cris) of a Police National Computer (PNC) record of a previous allegation of drug rape against Port by another man. Nor was a British Transport Police (BTP) report of him being questioned in the company of another drugged man at Barking station two weeks before Anthony Walgate’s death was logged. In June 2014, Anthony Walgate, 23, was found outside Port’s flat, dead for several hours, according to an ambulance responder and forensic medical advisor. This contradicted Port’s account that he had found him alive. Walgate’s death was regarded as unexplained, not suspicious.
One week later, it emerged that Port had hired Walgate as an escort, and Port changed his story. He claimed that Walgate had self-administered drugs and died in his flat. Port was bailed, but it wasn’t until the 15th of January 2015 that he was charged. His laptop was seized, and he was charged with perverting the course of justice, pleading guilty in March 2015 and sentenced to eight months in jail. The Crown Prosecutor was not told about the PNC’s previous drug rape allegation or the BTP report. Though seized on the 27th of June 2014, the laptop was not submitted for forensic examination by Barking police for ten months. They did not examine the downloaded results until July 2015. More than a year after Walgate’s murder.
The trainee detective examining the downloaded material in July 2015 “failed to register Port’s ‘absolutely incessant … all day, every day’ obsessions” with gay drug rape pornography, and the thousands of messages on online forums and social media about drug rape. Walgate’s friends had urged the police to check Port’s laptop but claim they were told it was “too expensive” to check — a claim that the police deny.
Though sentenced to eight months in jail for perjury, Port served four and was released in 2015. Before his four-month stint in jail, Port had already murdered Gabriel Kovari, 22, and Daniel Whitworth, 21. Kovari, his second victim, was found 0.2 miles away from Port’s flat on the 28th of August 2014, five days after moving into Port’s Cooke Street flat. On the 27th of August, Port had called his sister to say that there was a dead both in his bathroom. Kovari was found in the graveyard of St Margaret’s Church by a dog walker. John Pape, a friend of Kovari, said that he had tried to help detectives by passing on information he felt could be helpful. However, they were “unwilling to engage with him”. No forensic tests were carried out on Kovari’s sunglasses, which had Port’s DNA on them. Kovari’s social media was not examined. His former boyfriend, whom Port contacted, pretending to be a 21-year-old gay porn star from California called John Luck, was not contacted and questioned by the police. The family liaison officer, DC Jackie Baxter, did not contact his family in Slovakia and, in one email, referred to Kovari as Lithuanian.
Daniel Whitworth, found three weeks later on the 20th of September, was found in the same graveyard by the same dog walker. Port placed a fake suicide note on Whitworth’s body, claiming he had killed himself after accidentally killing Kovari with an overdose of the date-rape drug GHB. The note also said: “BTW. Please do not blame the guy I was with last night. We only had sex then I left. He knows nothing of what I have done.” The police appeared to believe the note as they did not submit it, the bedsheet Whitworth’s body was wrapped in, or the drug bottle planted on him for forensic examination. Nor did they trace the “guy” that Whitworth was with, who was, in fact, Stephen Port. They did not investigate Whitworth’s activity on the dating site Fitlads. It was only found later that Port had deleted his profile on Fitlads on the 19th of September. They sent a fragment of the ‘suicide note’ to Whitworth’s father, Adam, to verify Daniel’s handwriting. He told her he “wasn’t sure”, a claim the officer denied. No handwriting experts were consulted. The deaths of Gabriel Kovari and Daniel Whitworth were not treated as suspicious, and both inquests recorded open verdicts.
Two months after Port was released from his four-month prison sentence, he murdered his final victim, Jack Taylor, 25. In the early hours of the 13th of September, Taylor took a taxi to meet Port after matching on the app Grindr. Hours later, he was found in the same graveyard that Port had left the bodies of Kovari and Whitworth. Port deleted his profile on Grindr that day. The police did not link the deaths, initially putting the death down to a drug overdose. His family refused to accept this verdict and pursued their own inquiries.
As discovered in the inquest into police failures in the Stephen Port case, Detective Sergeant Peter Sweetman said that Taylor had the “stature and appearance” of someone who might take drugs. However, he denied that he had assumed Taylor was a drug addict. After mounting pressure on the police, detectives revealed that they had CCTV of Taylor with Port hours before he was murdered. This footage was found by a police constable, a member of the parks police, who had been first on the scene. After being first on the scene and in spite of his lack of investigative training, he found himself tasked with following up leads.
On the 15th of October 2015, Port was arrested on suspicion of causing all four deaths through the administration of poison (GHB). On the 18th, he was charged with four counts of murder. Following reports in the media, eight other men came forward with allegations that they had been drugged and raped by Port at his flat after meeting him online. Following Port’s trial, the Met was forced to apologise to the families of Walgate, Kovari, Whitworth, and Taylor. After Port’s sentencing, the Met revealed it was re-investigating 58 unexplained deaths involving date-rape drugs.
During the inquest into whether Port could have been apprehended sooner, family and friends of his four victims stated they felt their concerns had been “push[ed] aside”. Peter Skelton QC, representing the Metropolitan Police, suggested to Pape that “incompetence does not always equate to prejudice”. Pape replied: “You have to ask why they are … making so many mistakes. … To my mind, it’s because they … didn’t value those four young men … I would agree that what happened here was incompetence … but behind that incompetence there has to be a reason …”.
Though the Met apologised, no officers involved in the investigation were sacked. Five of the officers who were reprimanded have since been promoted to more senior ranks. A total of seven of the officers have been promoted. The IOPC ruled that nine out of seventeen detectives’ performances were found to have “fallen below the standard required”. (Source: Pink News)
The Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Stuart Cundy, described the failings as “unique”. In light of this description, this Author wonders if the Deputy Assistant Commissioner is unable to draw parallels between the police response to the Port murders and the Nilsen murders of the 1970s and 80s. The parallels are uncanny: police dismissal of previous victims with no reports properly filed; fear of homophobic responses from the police silencing survivors who never went to the police; gay men being undervalued, and therefore their deaths being under-investigated or written off. If nothing has changed between the 70s and 80s and the 2010s, these failings are hardly unique.
MPs have called for an investigation into whether the Met can be described as institutionally homophobic. This Author would argue that investigation has already occurred, and the verdict does not look good.
It is well known that in institutions like the Metropolitan Police, the fish rots from the head down. In top-down management configurations, the standards of the leadership influence the rest of the institution. Therefore it is the leadership who are responsible for the record. So, who is the most recent leader of the Met?
Cressida Dick made history by becoming the first woman and first lesbian to lead the Metropolitan Police Force; however, this dix not make her a liberalising force within the institution. Her appointment returned her to the force in 2017, following her retirement in 2015 to take a job in the Foreign Office. The Foreign Secretary was Philip Hammond until 2016, and he was succeeded by one Boris Johnson. The current Prime Minister.
Dick and Johnson were both students of Balliol College Oxford. Briefly missing each other, Dick graduated in the spring of 1982; Johnson began in the autumn of 1983, along with the convicted sex-offender Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell also attended Oxford High School until the age of nine: at the same time as Cressida Dick, one year apart. Maxwell, the friend of Prince Andrew. The same Prince Andrew whom the Met Police have dropped an investigation against at least three times.
Anyone in Whitehall playing six degrees of separation needn’t bother thinking past one. This is deeply evocative of the continuous criticism of the Conservative Party: with the network of ‘old boys’ continuously getting the top jobs. Looking at the evidence, it is clear that this network that benefits friends is also at work in the Metropolitan Police: a supposedly independent institution. The Author wonders if now is the time to mention that the Health Secretary, Sajid Javid’s brother, Bas Javid, is a Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the Met Police. What about the fact that he reports to Helen Ball, Commissioner Dick’s partner?
Dick’s original contract was to end this year. However, in September 2021, she was offered a two-year extension by Home Secretary Priti Patel, consulting with London Mayor Sadiq Khan and No 10 Downing Street. However, following Khan’s withdrawal of confidence, Dick’s contract will still end in 2022.
Under her time as Commissioner of Police, there has been an expansion of stop and search, a policy which is used as a “strategic tool to reinforce structural racism,” which had already led to black people being nine times more likely to be stopped than white people in England and Wales. She has also been criticised for the mishandling of various inquiries and for her inability to accept criticisms of the police force. However, doubts about her competence as Commissioner outdate her tenure in the position.
While Gold Commander Dick headed the operation, which led to the fatal shooting of the Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes. He was wrongly identified as one of the fugitives involved in the bombings on the 7th of July 2005. In one of the unexploded bags, an address in Scotia Road, Tulse Hill, was found, written on a gym membership card. Menezes lived in one of the flats with two of his cousins, was witnessed emerging from the communal entrance of the block by an undercover surveillance unit.
A solider on secondment to the undercover surveillance unit, “Frank”, compared Menezes to the CCTV photographs of the bombing suspects and felt he warranted further attention. Allegedly urinating, he could not film the suspect to transmit to Gold Command. However, Dick authorised officers to continue pursuit and surveillance and ordered that Menezes be prevented from entering the Tube system. The independent inquiry found that mistakes in police surveillance led to a failure to correctly identify Menezes, which led to the assumptions and actions which led to his ‘unlawful death’ at Stockwell Tube Station.
Officers later stated that they were confident they had the correct man, noting that he “had Mongolian eyes”. The pursuing officers contacted Gold Command and stated that Menezes potentially matched the description of two of the July 7th suspects, including Osman Hussain. Based on this information, Gold Command authorised ‘code red’ tactics and ordered surveillance officers to prevent Menezes from boarding a train. According to a source at Scotland Yard, Dick told the surveillance team that the man had to be “detained as soon as possible”. Then, Gold Command transferred control to the Specialist Firearms Command, which dispatched firearms officers to Stockwell tube station. Three surveillance officers followed Menezes onto the tube. When firearms officers arrived on the platform, one blocked the door from closing and shouted: “He’s here!”
Menezes was shot in the head at close range a total of seven times.
The following day, the Metropolitan Police publicly identified him as Jean Charles de Menezes and apologised to the family. On the 18th of August, the IPCC issued a statement stating that the Met was “initially [resistant]” to the investigation. A Scotland Yard spokeswoman said that the apology was declined. The IPCC announced that it took over the inquiry on the 25th of July. However, the inquiry was not handed over until two days later. The police lobbied MPs, attempting to influence the inquiry. The Met declined requests by the IPCC to disclose whether Special Branch officers altered surveillance logs, among other accusations. In May 2006, the Metropolitan Police Federation released a 12-page statement criticising the IPCC in general and the Stockwell inquiry in particular.
Dick was cleared of personal blame in a 2007 trial. Eventually, in 2009, the family reached a legal settlement with Scotland Yard for a sum believed to be £100,000. In 2017, the family’s calls that Dick not be considered for the role of Commissioner were ignored.
On the evening of the 5th of June 2020, the sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were murdered following a celebration of Bibaa’s birthday. Between the 6th and the 7th, family and friends reported the sisters missing three times. However, the duty inspector decided to close the police logs and resources were not deployed until mid-morning on the 7th of June. Furthermore, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that a call handler referred to one of the sisters as a “suspect”. Information was recorded “inaccurately” by a communications supervisor, hindering an already stagnant investigation.
There was a missing person report for Nicole Smallman, which was not progressed by the duty inspector. A missing person report was not created for Bibaa Henry until the 7th of June, even though she was classified as a missing person on the police log, preventing action from being taken to find her, in breach of MPS’ missing person policy. It was a search by the sisters’ family and friends which led to the discovery of their bodies on the 7th of June. The sisters’ mother, Mina Smallman, said that she believed race was a factor, telling Channel 4 News: “No one was taking it seriously. There was no search put out by the police … There was no action at all … Right from the very beginning, they knew they were looking for two girls, two women of colour. I’m trying to understand why they didn’t follow procedure. What could the explanation be?”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct, whose parent organisation is the Home Office, the same Home Office that is the secondary governing body of the Metropolitan Police, found that the Met failed the family but stated that the failings of the Metropolitan Police were not racist. When talking about the level of service applied to the case, Dick admitted it had been “below the standard”. Eagle-eyed readers will notice the similarity between this language and the apology letter to Dr Duff and the IOPC’s findings during the Stephen Port inquiry. Repeated use of such a passive statement suggests to the Author that this is precisely the standard of service that the Met provides. Dick said that the force would apologise, following a suggestion by the IOPC.
This is not the only egregious incident to emerge from the murders of Nicole and Bibaa. In November of 2021, two Met Officers were found guilty of sharing photographs they had taken of the two sisters at the crime scene. One of them referred to the sisters as “dead birds”. Former PC Jamie Lewis, 33, was dismissed from the force following the guilty verdict. In contrast, former PC Deniz Jaffer, 47, had already resigned. These photographs were sent in a Whatsapp group chat. Both men were sentenced to two years and nine months in December 2021.
On the 3rd of March 2021 Sarah Everard, 33, was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by Metropolitan Police Officer Wayne Couzens, 48, after he falsely arrested her for breaching COVID-19 regulations. He was found guilty in July 2021, and was sentenced to life in jail. Nicknamed ‘The Rapist’ by police colleagues, Couzens had previously indecently exposed himself (2002, 2008, 2015), with another indecent exposure taking place just three days before he murdered Sarah Everard. In mid-October, it was reported that the police were investigating claims that Couzens had sexually assaulted a drag queen in 2018. In all of these cases, the police have been described as laughing it off or purposefully ignoring it after finding out it was a fellow police officer.
Dick’s claim that “on occasion, … [she has a] bad ‘un” is a direct contradiction with the statistics of sexual misconduct in the Metropolitan Police Force. Fifty-two per cent of London police officers keep their jobs after being found guilty of sexual misconduct. According to the Tribune: “The Metropolitan Police seems to have a particular issue with these offences, with over 750 Met Police staff facing sexual misconduct allegations since 2010, and only 83 being sacked.” This Author would also like to point out to Commissioner Dick that PC David Carrick, 47, who served in the same unit as Couzens, was initially charged with the rape of a woman he met on a dating app in 2020 and now faces a total of 29 offences dating from 2009 to 2020. What’s that old phrase again? One rotten apple, my arse?
It is documented that only 1.3% of sexual assaults are reported to the police. 1.3 goes into 100 approximately 76.9 times. If one were to multiply a number, say 750 by (spitballing, just stay with us on this one) 76.9, one would get a total of 57,675. That number is larger than the number of Met Police Officers currently serving, around 43,000. If one were to include Met Staff and Officers no longer serving, one would, without a doubt, reach a figure higher than 57,675. The widespread nature of misogynistic abuse within society is undoubtedly reflected in the police force. Neither exists in separate spheres. While these numbers are approximated and conjecture only, understand that the crimes reported are only a small percentage of a much larger issue: institutional, not individual.
During the search operation, in a similar fashion to the disrespect shown to Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, an “inappropriate graphic” making light of the murder of Sarah Everard was shared by a Metropolitan Police Officer in a Whatsapp group chat. He, like former PC Jamie Lewis and former PC Deniz Jaffer, was guarding the scene of the crime. Ex-Metropolitan Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville said: “Being a frontline officer, dealing with crime and misery, often requires a gallows sense of humour to let off steam … [Any] decent officer knows the limits. Joking about a horrific murder and kidnap, whist the family is grieving, is completely unacceptable.” This Author would suggest to Mr Neville that ‘gallows humour’ about victims of horrific crimes, whether or not the family is grieving, is an inappropriate response from a police officer. She suggests therapy.
At a vigil held on the 13th of March 2021 at Clapham Common for Sarah Everard, the Metropolitan Police breached the attendees’ “fundamental rights”. Police arrived at the scene of the peaceful vigil began clashing with crowds and trampling over flowers left around the bandstand. Women were grabbed, manhandled, and forced to the ground. Several women were arrested. Patsy Stevenson, whose image when viral following her arrest, told Sky News that she was “terrified” as a police officer taking her away warned her he had a baton.
UK Police Forces have received more than 800 domestic abuse allegations against serving officers and staff over the last five years, with just 43 (5%) of the cases being prosecuted. Victims of domestic abuse told the BBC that they do not believe their complaints were adequately investigated. In 2019, an official super-complaint was launched into the culture within the police force, which allows police officers and staff to abuse their spouses and partners without fear of investigation. Harriet Wistrich, founding director of Centre for Women’s Justice, stated at the time: “It is … not an isolated case[which] illustrates systemic faults that require change.” Following the Sarah Everard case, there was increased public scrutiny of these statistics, which have not improved in the two years since the super-complaint was brought.
The independent panel investigating the 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan found the Metropolitan police to be institutionally corrupt. Notably, the report by an independent panel found links between private investigators, police officers and journalists at the News of the World. It has long been alleged that Morgan had fed some information to a News of the World journalist, who, in turn, fed this information back to the police. Morgan was then found murdered in a pub car park with an axe in his head. There have been at least four police investigations and an inquest, but the case remains unsolved.
Following the inquest’s findings, the BBC reported that his family have “always maintained he was on the cusp of exposing police corruption”. The report, published on the 15th of June 2021, into the murder found that the Metropolitan Police were institutionally corrupt. A finding that Dick, Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave and Deputy Commissioner Sir Stephen House all refused to accept. Baroness Nuala O’Loan said that “incompetence and corrupt acts” hindered investigations into Morgan’s murder. The Met has apologised to the family. However, Morgan’s son, Daniel Morgan Jr, has stated that he does not accept their apology.
Dick has been criticised by the independent panel that conducted the official report on investigations into private investigator Daniel Morgan’s murder. She was “personally censured” for obstruction, intentionally hampering the inquiry by delaying the panel’s access to documents and a database needed to complete its inquiries (Source: The Guardian). Though the Met has said that they accept that corruption was a “major factor” in the failure of the 1987 investigation, Dick stated that she doesn’t “accept” that the institution is corrupt.
While it is a relief to have the finding of institutional corruption in an official report, written on paper for everyone to see, it is no surprise to this Author. The finding of the Met as institutionally corrupt is evident to those who turn a critical eye towards them. The Met does not work for the people; the Met works for the Government. The Government views ‘other’ people— women, the working-class, trade unionists, the LGBT+ community, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Black people, Asian people — with contempt, as do the Met.
This has once again been made clear in the IOPC report published on the 1st of February 2022. Launched in March 2018, the nine independent investigations found evidence of “disgraceful” bullying, misogyny, discrimination and sexual harassment. Of the 14 officers investigated: two were dismissed for gross misconduct and put on a list barring them from future employment with the police; two resigned; nine are still serving; another works as a contractor in a staff role; several face disciplinary action (Source: The BBC). This Author would like to point out that one was nicknamed ‘McRapey Raperson’ by his colleagues and wonders where she has seen ‘jokey’ nicknames about a serving officer being a rapist before…
The Met has apologised, but to that this Author says: an apology for the same thing, time and time again, before doing it again, means that you’re only sorry you got caught.
Perhaps the tide is turning on independent investigations into the police. Perhaps an investigation will turn into institutional action. Given their record, probably not. Every time an investigation reaches yet another damning verdict, it must be asked: will this be a movement or a moment?
Returning once again to the topic of obstruction: on the 28th of January 2022, it was revealed that the Met Police had instructed Sue Gray to make “minimal reference” to No 10 parties it is (finally) investigating. Having resisted investigation for over a month, it has been pointed out several times that this is a convenient time to begin. The Conservatives will use the heavily reduced and redacted report to absolve Boris Johnson and those who attended the parties. The closure of an investigation by the Met Police with the statement that no wrong-doing has been found will likely mean that the full report will not be released — because there will be ‘little need’ and the public will have ‘moved on’.
If, not when the report is published in full, the public will finally know the extent to which Government ministers and civil servants broke the law. This should be catastrophic for the Prime Minister. As pointed out by Ash Sarkar on Twitter:
One must ask: why was Dick still Commissioner? Questions are, and should continue to be raised about the close relationship between Johnson and Dick: especially following his salvation of her career after her handling of the Sarah Everard case and vigil was intensely criticised. Given previous criticisms of obstruction of the Daniel Morgan case, this Author wonders if there is a more sinister reason for the Government’s continued support of Dick’s tenure.
It is also important to note here that being cleared in the eyes of the public as a result of the suppression evidence doesn’t suggest to this Author innocence on the part of the Prime Minister and his underlings.
This Author would argue that this is only one way to become “the most trusted police force in the world,” and that is institutional change on a foundational level.
This Author is aware that one way of cutting crime rates within the police force is defunding the police. While the current Government presides over cuts to police spending as part of their austerity measures, they are not divesting funding to proven crime reducers within communities: schools, libraries, youth clubs, social workers, mental health first responders and professionals.
Communities are being left to aid their own as much as possible while being over-policed and under-protected. Families organise search parties for missing relatives and find them dead. The onus of finding evidence seems to be on the public rather than the police.
As for cutting crime figures within the police force? Well. Change of leadership is in order.
What concerns this Author now is the means by which a leader is chosen. Can there be any unbiased decision when the leader of the political party in charge of the entire country and, therefore, the police force, while said leader is being investigated by said police force? The Author thinks not.
In short, the police are institutionally racist and institutionally corrupt. They are well on their way to being found institutionally homophobic and misogynistic. There is not and, if, or but about it. The Met is unfit for use,and is fundamentally, inherently against their mission statement.
The Met Police don’t investigate past crimes. The Met Police don’t investigate crimes in Government. The Met Police don’t investigate crimes when the victims are women. The Met Police don’t investigate crimes when the victims are Black. The Met Police don’t investigate crimes when the victims are Asian. The Met Police don’t investigate crimes when the victims are gay, or lesbian, or bisexual, or trans. The Met Police don’t investigate perpetrators when they are white middle-class men.
The Met Police do investigate themselves. And themselves, they find innocent.
Editor’s Note: There is a change.org petition to remove the officers on the Stephen Port case from their jobs based on gross and negligent incompetence. Link here:
