Met Police will stop using plain-clothes officers on their own
THE Met will not deploy plainclothes officers working on their own in the wake of the Sarah Everard case.
Speaking in a London Assembly meeting of the Police and Crime Committee, Deputy Commissioner Sir Stephen House said: “We will not operate plain-clothes officers on their own. If we do use them, they will be in pairs.”
The measure is supposed to be a part of the Met Police’s efforts to “rebuild trust and confidence” and “to protect women and girls in public and private spaces”, according to the Deputy Commissioner. This follows Met Police officer Wayne Couzens’ abusing his police power to kidnap Sarah Everard under the guise of an arrest and then rape and murder her. Citing the example of when a pair of officers are forced to split up, he continued: “Because we live in the real world, there will be occasions when that is not possible.” He also noted that off-duty officers not in uniform “put themselves on duty” when they come across an incident.
While acknowledging that a warrant card may not be enough to convince all members of the public that the holder is a legitimate police officer, Sir Stephen announced that the cards will be made harder to counterfeit and added additional pledges on improving trust.
Couzens used his legitimate warrant card to arrest Sarah.
“We are instructing our officers, the policy going forward will be that they must facilitate a greater trust,” he said.
He said that, if necessary, this will include allowing phone calls to be made to the Met’s control room to confirm the officer’s identity, commenting: “That should be enough to confirm identity, we believe. We know we have to go further to achieve trust and to prove the identity of plain-clothed officers. And we are prepared and keen to do that.”