An undercover investigation has caught on camera Metropolitan Police officers calling for immigrants to be shot, dismissing rape claims and using inappropriate levels of force in their handling and detention of suspects. BBC reporter, Rory Bibb, spent seven months up to January for a Panorama investigation broadcast last night as a detention officer working in the custody suite of Charing Cross police station.
Sadiq Khan, the London Mayor Sir, told BBC News he was ‘disgusted and appalled’ by conduct of officers and the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood described the footage as ‘disturbing’ and ‘sickening’. The Met commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the behaviour ‘disgraceful, totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and standards’ of the force.
The programme comes four and a half years after the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by the Metropolitan police officer Wayne Couzens. As a result, the Met commissioned an independent report into the force’s behaviour and culture. Baroness Louise Casey concluded the Met was ‘institutionally misogynistic, homophobic and racist’.
Sue Fish, who was temporary chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police and previously ran misconduct hearings, reviewed the footage. ‘There is, without doubt, a discriminatory culture right across the Metropolitan Police,’ Fish told presenter Emma Varney. ‘The Met is not able to assure all of us that its officers are of sufficient integrity and standards to be serving police officers, so it needs to clean itself up.’
‘I’ve seen enough to say there is a highly toxic culture there of hypersexualized male behavior, misogyny, racism and gratuitous unlawful violence. This is one thing where the leadership of the Metropolitan Police has never really grasp the significance, the scale and impact. It’s always been a rotten apple, not a rotten barrel.’
Sue Fish, former chief constable
Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, didn’t accept the problems in his force were ‘institutional’ but he promised change. Following last night’s panorama, Sir Mark apologised for the ‘reprehensible and completely unacceptable’ behaviour. In a letter addressed to Sadiq Khan, he listed ‘immediate actions’ the Met had taken including having dismantled the custody team at Charing Cross and ensuring all those involved will be ‘put on a fast-track hearing within weeks and [are] on a path to likely dismissal’.
- The undercover report includes footage of:
Sgt Joe McIlvenny, an officer with nearly 20 years’ service in the Met, who was dismissive about a pregnant woman’s allegations of rape and domestic violence, after a colleague raised concerns about the decision to release the accused man on bail. He replied: ‘That’s what she says.’ - PC Martin Borg, who enthusiastically described how he saw another officer, Sgt Steve Stamp, stomp on a suspect’s leg. PC Borg laughed when he described how he had offered to make a statement saying the suspect had tried to kick the sergeant first. It was unclear from CCTV footage if the claim was true.
- PC Phil Neilson, who told our reporter in the pub that a detainee who had overstayed his visa should have ‘a bullet through his head’ and ‘ones that shag, rape women, you’d do the cock and let them bleed out’.
