Under-fire Met chief Mark Rowley admits Scotland Yard has ‘racists, misogynists and homophobes in its ranks after damning report excoriated scandal-hit force – as Rishi Sunak says trust in the police has been ‘hugely damaged’
- Sir Mark sparked row by rejecting idea Met was guilty of ‘institutional’ racism
The commissioner of the Met Police today admitted the force has ‘racists, misogynists and homophobes’ in its ranks after a damning report exposed a ‘broken and corrupt’ organisation which tolerates abusive behaviour and fails rape victims.
Sir Mark Rowley described the findings in Baroness Casey’s report as ‘deeply worrying’ and said you could not read the report and not be ‘upset, embarrassed and humbled’.
He told Sky News: ‘I absolutely accept the diagnosis that Louise Casey comes up with. We have racists, misogynists and homophobes in the organisation. And it’s not just about individuals. We have systemic failings, management failings and cultural failings.’
However, Sir Mark sparked a major row by rejecting the report’s finding that the force was guilty of ‘institutional’ racism, misogyny and homophobia’, saying the term was ‘politicised and ambiguous’.
Speaking today, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said trust in the Metropolitan Police has been ‘hugely damaged’ – but backed Sir Mark to continue in his bid to turn around the Met.
Meanwhile, Home Secretary Suella Braverman told the Commons: ‘Today’s report makes for very concerning reading. It’s clear there have been serious failures of culture, leadership, and standards within the Metropolitan Police.’
Sir Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police, said he felt ‘upset, embarrassed and humbled’ after reading the report
The most damning report in its near 200-year history concluded that the Met cannot be trusted to police itself and may harbour many more predatory officers like Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick.
Baroness Casey said Ms Everard’s murder should have been like a ‘plane falling out of the sky’ for the Met. But instead it ‘preferred to pretend that their own perpetrators of unconscionable crimes were just ‘bad apples’, or not police officers at all’.
She cited the storage of rape evidence as symbolic of how Scotland Yard has ‘lost its way’, with a whole freezer worth of intimate swabs and material thrown away after it broke down – leading to rapists ‘walking free’. In one police station a lunchbox was found next to samples from sex crimes.
One officer told the review: ‘If you look at our performance around rape, serious sexual offences, the detection rate is so low you may as well say it’s legal in London.’
Female officers said they had been sexually assaulted and regularly targeted by male colleagues hunting new sexual conquests, while officers left sex toys in mugs as ‘pranks’.
Rapists ‘walked free’ after Met Police destroyed evidence – because a fridge broke
A Muslim officer had bacon put in his shoes and Sikh officers were humiliated, one having their beard cut and another having his turban hidden. One black security guard was called a ‘gate monkey’.
Suella Braverman said there have been ‘growing concerns’ about the Met’s performance and ability to ‘command the confidence and trust of Londoners’.
Making a statement in the Commons, the Home Secretary said: “It is vital that the law-abiding public do not face a threat from the police themselves.
“Those who are not fit to wear the uniform must be prevented from doing so, and where they are revealed, they must be driven out of the force and face justice.
“We’ve taken steps to ensure that forces are tackling weaknesses in their vetting systems. I’ve listened to Sir Mark and his colleagues, and the Home Office is reviewing the police dismissals process to ensure that officers who fall short of expected standards can be quickly dismissed.
“The finding of Baroness Casey’s review will help inform the work of Lady Angiolini whose independent inquiry established by the Government will look at broader issues of police standards and culture.”
Rishi Sunak was asked today whether he believed his daughters could trust the police in London.
‘Of course we need the answer to that question to be yes,’ he told BBC Breakfast. ‘Clearly at the moment trust in the police has been hugely damaged by the things that we’ve discovered over the past year.’
Baroness Casey said the murder of Ms Everard by serving firearms officer Wayne Couzens (pictured) should have been like a ‘plane falling out of the sky’ for Scotland Yard
Serial rapist David Carrick was jailed for life with a minimum term of 32 years after carrying out a ‘catalogue of violent and brutal’ sex attacks between 2003 and 2020 against at least a dozen women
Mr Sunak said there needs to be a ‘change in culture and leadership’ in policing but added that Commissioner Sir Mark is ‘committed to making the changes’.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer laid the blame for the report’s findings at the feet of the Home Office, saying the department had a ‘void of leadership’.
‘The racist, sexist and homophobic abuses of power that have run rife in the Metropolitan Police have shattered the trust that Britain’s policing relies on and let victims down,’ he said.
‘For 13 years there has been a void of leadership from the Home Office, which has seen Britain’s policing fall far below the standards the public have the right to expect.’
Speaking this morning, Sir Mark Rowley described the review’s findings as ‘deeply worrying’, adding that you cannot read the report and not be ‘upset, embarrassed and humbled’.
He said the reason he does not use the term ‘institutional’ is because he thinks it is ‘a very ambiguous’ term. ‘Everyone uses different definitions,’ he said, adding there are ‘toxic individuals’ in the Met who are in the process of being removed.
Sir Mark was criticised by Nusrit Mehtab, a former Scotland Yard superintendent, who said the force should be disbanded if its leadership did not ‘accept the whole report’.
Meanwhile, Jayne Butler, chief executive of Rape Crisis, said: ‘It is evident that the Met has not just tolerated a culture of misogyny, racism and homophobia, it has enabled it to thrive.’
Baroness Casey demanded a ‘complete overhaul’ of the £4billion service, saying anything less would be ‘clutching at straws’.
In the devastating independent report, commissioned after Ms Everard’s murder, Baroness Casey found:
- Alleged rapists went free after fridges broke down, destroying all the evidence inside meaning all the cases had to be dropped. Some fridges were so full it took three officers to shut them and one was also being used to store lunch alongside forensic samples;
- A Muslim officer had bacon put in his shoes by a colleague, a Sikh officer had his beard trimmed and another officer had his turban put into a shoe box because officers ‘thought it was funny’. In one instance a black guard was referred to as a ‘gate monkey’ by colleagues;
- Female officers were targeted by men for sex. Some felt pressure to sleep with colleagues to be popular. One officer was even allegedly sexually assaulted in a shower. One woman said a senior officer masturbated in front of her in the communal changing room;
- ‘Pranks’ included bags of urine being thrown at cars, sex toys slipped into coffee mugs, male officers flicking each other’s genitals and an animal being trapped in an officer’s locker. There is widespread bullying at the Yard, with a fifth of staff being victimised;
- Homophobia is rife. One gay officer said a colleague spread false rumours that he had slept with senior officers to get ahead and made up claims he was taking drugs. Others were accused of making malicious complaints about gay people and even considering using stop and search to target them. One said: ‘I am scared of the police. I don’t trust my own organisation’;
- The parliamentary and diplomatic protection unit where Couzens and Carrick worked is described as a ‘dark corner’ of the Met known as ‘overtime command’. Officers often join to pay for weddings and top up their pensions. The review found that officers ‘game the system’ to cash in on overtime and other bonuses, wasting public money on unnecessary overseas training trips and hotel rooms.
- In the ‘boys’ club’, senior armed officers have competitions to see if they can make female colleagues cry and put up posters in common areas showing female firearms officers carrying mops, irons and kettles instead of weapons. One officer said: ‘It’s the most toxic, racist, sexist place I’ve ever worked – it’s just an unbelievable place.’
Scotland Yard is ‘broken’ and its ‘rotten’ ranks are riven with racism, misogyny and homophobia, a shock review led by Baroness Louise Casey (pictured) says today
Baroness Casey warned there was nothing to stop other rapists in the ranks, adding: ‘In the absence of vigilance toward those who intend to abuse the office of constable, predatory and unacceptable behaviour has been allowed to flourish. There are too many places for people to hide.’
Characterising a culture of ‘blindness, arrogance and prejudice’, her report identified failings across nearly all departments, which have been ignored due to a ‘culture of denial and defensiveness’.
In conclusion, Baroness Casey said the force had lost public trust and become ‘unanchored’ from the founding principles established by Robert Peel in 1829.
‘The Met is in danger of losing its way – consent is broken,’ she said. ‘Too often, the Met seems to act in its own self interest rather than the interests of the public it serves.’
Her report found ‘widespread bullying’ in the ranks, a ‘deep-seated homophobia’, and ‘systemic racial bias’ so prevalent it was considered ‘not worth reporting’ by some officers.
READ MORE: The paradox facing Britain’s biggest force
Her 363-page report found violence against women and girls had not been taken as seriously as other forms of violence. Baroness Casey made 16 recommendations for change, saying the force should be broken up if it did not reform.
Her recommendations include disbanding the Met’s Diplomatic and Parliamentary Protection Unit, to which both Couzens and Carrick belonged. Sir Mark admitted the Met had ‘let people down’ but he promised ‘radical reform’.
Mina Smallman’s two daughters, Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were murdered by a satanist before two Met police officers took photos of their bodies and shared them on WhatsApp.
Speaking out about the state of the Met today, she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘Where we are now didn’t happen overnight. It’s been a drip drip drip.’
She said police officers would hire their friends, which fed into a ‘rotten’ culture and sense of impunity that had ‘grown and grown’.
Ms Smallman said she believes the ‘good police still outnumbers the bad’, but insisted: ‘They are the bullies. They are the ones running the show – these bad apples.
‘It’s like the bully in the playground. Everyone knows they’re rubbish but people are afraid. And when good police speak out they get the backlash.
‘And it’s not just their colleagues, it’s also the senior people who are enabling this culture to continue.’
The devastating independent report was commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard (pictured)
Asked about the current commissioner, Sir Mark, she said: ‘I’ll support him until he proves he’s not doing what he’s paid to do.’
Donna and Jenny Taylor, the sisters of murderer Stephen Port’s fourth victim Jack Taylor, believe the Met would have dealt with their brother’s death differently if he had been a woman.
‘Someone needs to take responsibility for tackling issues such as homophobia, someone needs to own it,’ they said.
‘Not one person has. We still feel that if Jack had been a girl the whole situation would have been dealt with differently from the start.
Former Met officer: ‘I saw colleagues share revenge porn while at work’
A former Met Police officer has said she witnessed her male colleagues share ‘revenge porn’ while at work.
Alice Vinten, who spent 11 years in the Met, said she saw fellow officers share pictures that had been sent in confidence by their girlfriends, who were often also in the police force.
Ms Vinten – who was interviewed in the wake of Baroness Casey’s report – said she experienced sexism throughout her career as a frontline police officer, and even had male colleagues randomly show her pornography.
She added that officers also made jokes about her giving oral sex while she was eating a banana.
‘I remember them taking the mick out of one of the younger officers because he had got an STI from a prostitute. There was even stories of them using prostitutes in this country,’ she said.
‘There were things that would now be considered revenge porn. A number of the police officers had seen intimate pictures and they would share them around.’
Ms Vinten said she overheard police officers say 99% of rape cases were regretful sex, and ‘women would cheat and say it was rape to get out of it’.
She added: ‘We were always told never to apologise, never admit to doing anything wrong – that kind of attitude really does not help.
‘If you root out the people who make these comments you root out the really bad ones.’
‘You can’t put it right and change the culture if you don’t know what’s going wrong, why it’s going wrong, or fail to fully investigate the root of the problems.
‘That is why there must now be a public inquiry into how and why this force is failing people so badly.’
In December 2021, inquest jurors found that ‘fundamental failures’ by the police left Port free to carry out a series of murders, as well as drug and sexually assault more than a dozen other men in Barking, east London, between June 2014 and September 2015.
The Met was accused of homophobia over the failure to stop Port, but force bosses repeatedly denied there was an issue with such discrimination.
The finding that the force is institutionally racist echoes that of the Macpherson Inquiry in 1999, which took place after the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Today, his mother Doreen Lawrence, called the force ‘rotten to the core’, and argued any reluctance to accept that institutional racism existed within the police service would mean any attempt at change was doomed to failure.
‘Since my son’s death and the recognition of institutional racism by Sir William Macpherson, the force has had almost 30 years to put its house in order,’ she said.
‘It has not done so, either because it does not want to or it does not know how to.’
‘Since then, despite repeated reassurances that the Metropolitan Police had learned lessons from its failures, discrimination in every form is clearly rampant in its ranks. It is not, and has never been, a case of a few ‘bad apples’ within the Metropolitan Police.
‘It is rotten to the core. Discrimination is institutionalised within the Metropolitan Police and it needs changing from top to bottom.
‘Any reluctance or refusal to accept that institutional racism exists within the police service will mean that any attempt at change is doomed to failure and, the police, yet again, will be letting down our communities.’
London mayor Sadiq Khan described today as ‘one of the darkest days in the history of our almost 200-year-old Met Police Service’.
He said it is ‘really important’ that if the Met is going to have a future they must ’embrace the recommendations’ of Baroness Casey’s report.
Mr Khan told BBC Breakfast: ‘We police by consent in our country. If the public has no confidence in the police they’re not going to come forward and report a crime.
‘They’re not going to come forward and be a witness to a crime to ensure there’s a prosecution, they’re not going to come forward and join the police.
‘So it’s in all of our interests to make sure that the police service changes, root and branch.’
Mina Smallman’s two daughters, Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were murdered by a satanist before two Met police officers took photos of their bodies and shared them on WhatsApp. Speaking out about the state of the Met today, she told Good Morning Britain: ‘Where we are now didn’t happen overnight. It’s been a drip drip drip’
Home Secretary Suella Braverman added: ‘It is clear that there have been serious failures of culture and leadership.’
National Police Chiefs’ Council chairman Martin Hewitt said: ‘Baroness Louise Casey’s review of the Metropolitan Police contains truly awful details and systemic failings.
‘It will bring out the strongest of feelings.
‘I am confident that Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley’s leadership team and the committed, professional majority of officers and staff will succeed in turning the failings around and create the police service London deserves.
‘All police chiefs have committed to change to become actively anti-racist. Equally we want a police service that is anti-misogynistic, anti-homophobic and anti-discrimination of any kind.
‘The review reinforces once again the urgency of our current mission across policing to lift the stones and root corrupt individuals and unacceptable behaviour out of policing, alongside delivering the long-term, sustainable improvements to standards, vetting and misconduct processes we have promised.’
But Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said the report would just dishearten police officers, adding that they were already ‘on their knees’.
Rotten state of Scotland Yard laid bare: Shattering 363-page dossier reveals how rape samples were stored next to a lunchbox in the fridge, sex toys were slipped into coffee mugs and racist officers left bacon in a Muslim colleague’s boots
It is the most damning report in the near 200-year history of Scotland Yard.
Baroness Casey blasted the Metropolitan Police, saying that bullying and predatory behaviour reigned, bosses were unable to spot rapists in the ranks and victims were made to feel like an ‘inconvenience’.
In excoriating detail her review set out how the Met lost its way.
Baroness Casey pictured arriving at Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre yesterday for the press briefing of her review into the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the Metropolitan Police Service
Baroness Casey’s report has set out how the Met Police has lost its way. Pictured: File image
CRUCIAL RAPE EVIDENCE LOST WHEN FREEZERS FAIL
Evidence from countless rape probes has been destroyed because of broken fridges and freezers, the review found. A lunchbox was found in the same fridge as rape samples – a mistake that would have contaminated the evidence.
Forensic kits that preserve evidence obtained from survivors of sexual violence, including swabs, blood, urine and underwear, are stuffed in fridges so full it takes three officers to close them – one to push the door closed, one to hold it shut and one to secure the lock.
All the fridges used for rape kits were in bad shape, packed and ruining evidence, Baroness Casey found. She described freezers overflowing with evidence samples, frosted over or taped shut. In a heatwave last year, one broke down and all rape victims whose samples were in that fridge were told their cases would be dropped.
Pictured is rapist and murderer PC Wayne Couzens who served in the Met Police
One female officer said she had ‘lost count’ of the number of times she had asked a colleague where the necessary evidence was before being told that it had been lost.
Another officer told of year-long waits for toxicology results and forensic examination of phones. Separately police are being told to regularly delete their WhatsApps in the wake of a string of scandals about officers swapping vile messages with each other.
Deputy Commissioner Dame Lynne Owens admitted yesterday that she did not know how many cases had been dropped as a result of the fridge issues.
BULLYING BAKED INTO THE SYSTEM
READ MORE: The most damning report in the Met Police’s 200-year history
Baroness Casey described a ‘bullying culture’ where discrimination was ‘baked into the system’.
Young recruits are subjected to humiliating initiation rituals right from the beginning of their careers, including food eating challenges and being urinated on.
One officer was even allegedly sexually assaulted in a shower. Examples of ‘pranks’ included bags of urine being thrown at cars, sex toys slipped into coffee mugs, male officers flicking each other’s genitals and an animal being trapped in an officer’s locker.
One Muslim officer said: ‘I found bacon left in my boots inside my locked locker. I was horrified. I didn’t want to be branded a person who played the race card and out of fear of reprisals did not tell anyone at the time.’
Another recalled: ‘There have been a number of incidents where baptised [Sikh] officers are picked on. One officer had his beard cut because an officer thought it was funny. Another officer had his turban put into a shoe box because they thought it was funny.’
ARMED UNITS ARE THE ‘DARK CORNER’
The report said Scotland Yard’s armed units were a ‘dark corner’ of the force.
Baroness Casey described ‘elitist attitudes and toxic cultures of bullying, racism, sexism and ableism’ in the Specialist Firearms Command and Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, where Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick were officers.
In the ‘boys’ club’, senior armed officers have competitions to see if they can make female colleagues cry and put up posters in common areas showing female firearms officers carrying mops, irons and kettles instead of weapons. One officer said: ‘It’s the most toxic, racist, sexist place I’ve ever worked – it’s just an unbelievable place.’
In one instance a black guard was referred to as a ‘gate monkey’ by colleagues. Officers are also told it is alright to ‘colour outside the lines’ – meaning to bend and break rules – because firearms police are harder to replace. The review found that officers ‘game the system’ to cash in on overtime and other bonuses, wasting public money on unnecessary overseas training trips and hotel rooms. The unit is known as ‘overtime command’ and officers join to pay off their weddings and top up their pensions.
Baroness Casey said it should be shut down, adding: ‘It is a dark corner of the Met where poor behaviours can easily flourish and are both harder to spot and harder to stop.’
READ MORE: ‘The rape detection rate is so low you may as well say it’s legal in London’
A TOXIC WORKPLACE FOR WOMEN
Tales abound of young female officers being ‘traded like cattle’ and moved to different units depending on which male officers found them attractive. One female officer recalled a colleague forcing her to sit on his lap before touching her intimately and performing a sex act while she was in communal changing rooms. On another occasion he forcibly started to undress her while they were on duty.
When she complained the case was dropped and she was made out to be a ‘troublemaker’. One female officer said: ‘The Met is a male-orientated and misogynistic environment filled with testosterone, notches on bed posts and conquests. Senior officers and supervisors prey on females like predators.’
HOMOPHOBIA RIFE AMONG THE RANKS
Almost one in five lesbian, gay, or bisexual staff surveyed said they had experienced homophobia and 14 per cent said it was once or twice a week.
One male officer was targeted on social media with homophobic slurs and malicious rumours about drugs.
WhatsApp messages were exchanged by colleagues about stopping and searching him while he was off duty. He told the review: ‘I am scared of the police. I don’t trust my own organisation. I will vary the route I walk to avoid walking past police officers when I am not at work.’
Baroness Casey said the force was institutionally homophobic, adding that 30 per cent of LGBTQ+ employees said they had been bullied.
Pictured is Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley
‘WILFUL BLINDNESS’ TO INSTITUTIONAL RACISM
The review found the force was institutionally racist and had failed to tackle the ‘rot’ present for many years. Black officers were 81 per cent more likely to be subject to a misconduct case than white officers.
One senior officer was openly asked in a large meeting in 2022: ‘Did you get to where you got to because you are black.’
And a black woman told the review: ‘You have to try and be invisible as a black woman… If you complain you get a reputation as being trouble and then supervisors try and pass you on to other teams.’
The 363-page report also acknowledged disproportionality – with black Londoners being ‘overpoliced’. It concluded there was a ‘wilful blindness’ and continued failure by commanders at Scotland Yard to accept and to address racism.
‘The rape detection rate is so low you may as well say it’s legal in London’: Review exposes how victims were made to feel like an ‘inconvenience’ by overworked and inexperienced Met Police officers
A damning review into the Met Police found that rape and domestic violence victims were made to feel like an ‘inconvenience’ and ‘gaslighted’ by overworked and inexperienced officers.
One officer said: ‘If you look at our performance around rape, serious sexual offences, the detection rate is so low you may as well say it’s legal in London.
‘It’s kind of reflective of how we treat and view our female colleagues. You get victim-blaming, looking at a situation and not believing them.’
Pictured is serial rapist PC David Carrick who served in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command
Rape victims described being told they ‘should and could have done more’ to protect themselves by sarcastic, rude and dismissive investigators.
Many officers are desperate to close cases with NFA – ‘no further action’. One admitted: ‘The incentive is get it NFA’d because we have to do so much work to get it up and then the Crown Prosecution Service will NFA anyway.’
A community officer added: ‘The best outcome is closing a report to reduce your workload.’
Domestic abuse crimes have doubled in London since 2012 and reported rapes have also gone up 244 per cent over this period, leaving officers swamped with work and dealing with 65 rape cases at a time.
Researchers found a woman raped and left in a coma was likely to be dealt with by a trainee detective.
Officers said victims could wait months to hear about their case and some were left suicidal.
One said: ‘You don’t want to be a victim of rape in London. Anyone who relies on policing in London for anything I’m scared for.’
Baroness Casey said promises to tackle violence against women and girls ‘ring hollow’.
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