More than 200 Met Police officers taken off frontline over race and sexual misconduct
A race action group has said that the Metropolitan Police’s ‘bad officers’ must be swiftly removed after figures showed more than 200 are being investigated for racial or sexual misconduct.
The officers have been removed from frontline and other duties while the UK’s biggest force undertakes investigations into their conduct.
As of May 17 this year, there were 124 individuals placed on restricted duties and 69 suspended over allegations of sexual misconduct.
A further 44 were restricted and two suspended for race misconduct, according to the figures obtained by Metro.co.uk.
However, only five officers have been dismissed across the two categories in 2022 and 2023 to date, according to the statistics released by the Met under the Freedom of Information Act.
Jeremy Crook OBE, chief executive of Action for Race Equality, which is secretariat for the new Alliance for Police Accountability (APA), told Metro.co.uk: ‘The Casey review laid bare the alarming extent of the Met’s problems and the commissioner has stated his intention to remove officers who should not be there.
‘The regulations that protect these officers must be removed so the commissioner can reform the organization, change the culture, and provide a service for Londoners to be proud of.
‘We need our police services to have a disciplinary process that is fair, transparent, and timely. It is hard to see how the Met can build trust and confidence with Black communities if bad officers are allowed to stay on the public payroll and collect their pensions.
‘These officers will only undermine efforts to change the Met’s culture, so it’s critical police leaders and the Mayor of London have the power to act now.’
The figures can be revealed after the mum of two murdered sisters said the force has ‘so much further to go’ in rooting out racism and misogyny.
Mina Smallman is fighting for change following the way the force handled the investigation into the murder of her daughters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, who were stabbed to death in London while out celebrating a birthday in June 2000.
Former Met constables Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis were jailed for two years and nine months each in December 2021 for sharing photographs of the bodies of the two women on WhatsApp.
The force was placed under special measures last June before being found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic, and homophobic by Baroness Louise Casey’s official report in March.
Ms Smallman said a lack of acceptance and transparency continued to persist in the Met, and that both good and bad instances of policing should be highlighted more often.
She said: ‘There has been an increased seriousness over vetting, for example, and I know they are working towards a better system of care for victims of domestic abuse and rape, but there is still so much further to go.’
Ms Smallman spoke ahead of today’s launch of the APA, which has been set up to fight racist, misogynistic, and homophobic policing.
The backdrop of distrust in the force also includes the case of Wayne Couzens, who was a serving officer when he kidnapped, raped, and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021. Couzens, 50, was given a whole-life jail sentence in September 2021.
One of the latest cases involving a former serving officer to go before the courts is that of Adam Provan, who was convicted last month of six counts of rape of a fellow officer and two counts of rape of a teenage girl.
Provan, 44, of Newmarket, Suffolk, was in the Met’s East Area Command Unit at the time he committed the offences.
The force has previously said the number of restrictions and suspensions have increased as a result of improvements in training and reporting regarding misconduct. However, the figures also show that only two officers have been dismissed for sexual misconduct and three for racism.
In the former category, one received a reduction in rank, another a written warning, two cases were not proven, and one was awaiting a decision at the time the information was released.
Race misconduct also involved one person leaving where they would have been dismissed, two being given written warnings, one listed as ‘no action’, six not proven, and one awaiting an outcome.
The overall figure of 239 officers restricted or suspended across the two categories has risen since January, when the Guardian reported that more than 150 officers were being prevented from holding public-facing roles.
Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has refused to accept the use of the word ‘institutional’ in the Casey review, saying it is ‘ambiguous’ and might be taken to mean most people in the Met were racist.
Last month, Sir Mark said that he is trying to ‘clean up’ the force by restricting or suspending hundreds of officers over their behaviour.
However, he told The News Agents podcast that the process is ‘not as easy as it ought to be’ due to rules governing dismissals which are more ‘bureaucratic, slower, more difficult than normal employment law’.
A Met spokesperson said: ‘The Met does not have the final say over whether someone can be dismissed, which will surprise a lot of people who probably think we do, and should, have that power.
‘Of course, as we work to drive up standards, we are exploring avenues to ensure the Met can decide who should serve the public.
‘We are working closely with the Police Federation to see how we can best achieve this and make sure our thousands of great officers aren’t let down by those who simply shouldn’t be here.’
MORE : The Met has ‘so much further to go’ in uprooting racism and misogyny
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