There’ll be ‘anarchy in the streets’ if policing crumbles after devastating report into Met, warns cops’ union leader
A POLICE union chief warned of anarchy in the streets after a damning report on the Met.
Ken Marsh fears public outrage will worsen an exodus of officers — giving criminals a free run.
The chair of the Met’s 30,000-strong Police Federation branch spoke after the report labelled the force institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic.
He said decent officers supported the findings and there was a “determination to sort out the mess and move on”.
But he warned: “We need the public and politicians to support us and not throw us under the bus.
“Good officers are leaving in their droves because they’ve had enough. Recruitment’s drying up.
“If policing breaks down there will be anarchy in the streets.
“The only winners will be criminals and terrorists.”
Baroness Louise Casesy of Blackstock’s report was ordered after Sarah Everard was murdered by officer Wayne Couzens.
It warned London’s Met, Britain’s biggest force, could be broken into smaller units if no progress is made.
The force was found to be institutionally racist in 1999 in a report into the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, 18.
His mum, Doreen, said: “It’s not, and has never been, a case of a few ‘bad apples’ in the Metropolitan Police.
“It’s rotten to the core.”
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has also accepted the report’s findings.