Top woman Asian cop suing Met over racism
Officer ‘was told to stay quiet over swastika at her police station’
SCoTLAND Yard’s former top female Asian officer is suing the force in a £500,000 racism claim, saying she was told to keep quiet about a swastika at her police station.
Superintendent Nusrit mehtab was once a poster girl for the force, and even starred in an ITV show named ‘mehtab of the met’ that followed her work to improve community relations in London’s east end.
She rose through the ranks to become the most senior female ethnic minority officer in the metropolitan Police, working in everything from undercover operations to counter-terrorism. But she quit the force in January, complaining of a ‘toxic workplace’ with sexism and institutional racism.
She said behind the scenes, Scotland Yard only paid ‘lip service’ to diversity and officers secretly hushed up a ‘racism graffiti campaign’, telling her to keep quiet after a swastika was scrawled in biro on the walls of her police station in edmonton, north London, last February.
Now, in an explosive race and sexism claim, she has described how senior white female officers ‘huddled together like mean Girls’, likening the cold shoulders they turned to black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAme) officers to the hit film starring Lindsay Lohan.
According to legal papers submitted by miss mehtab, when she went to work in Tower Hamlets in east London in 1988, ‘the traditional induction greeting for newly-arrived female officers... was to have their breast and bottoms stamped with the office stamp’.
She added: ‘In my case, the white male officers did not know how to initiate me. They put their minds to it and set a trap... they left a vibrator in my locker and congregated to watch me
open my locker, thrilled with their ingenuity and sniggering. That was the openly misogynistic culture in the police then.’
Miss Mehtab, who is of Pakistani origin, believes she was forced to patrol alone because of her race while white male colleagues refused to talk to or sit next to her, which she likened to being ignored by children.
A practising Muslim, she refused to wear a uniformed skirt for religious reasons and was forced to wear trousers made for a male officer. Things came to a head in February last year, when she reported a swastika in an area of Edmonton police station accessible only to staff.
According to papers lodged at an employment tribunal, Scotland Yard bosses told her to ‘keep quiet’ about the discovery and blamed builders.
The force launched an investigation, but the culprit was never found. Miss Mehtab said she feared there was a ‘farRight’ sympathiser about – and the ‘likelihood was that it was a police officer’. She described the incident as part of a ‘racist graffiti campaign’, which included a penis being scrawled on a photograph of an Asian superintendent months earlier.
Miss Mehtab is now bringing a claim against the Metropolitan Police at the Central London Employment Tribunal claiming constructive dismissal, race, sex and religious discrimination, harassment and victimisation.
She is seeking around £500,000 for lost earnings, pension and injury to feelings.
According to legal papers, her promotions were held up due to sexism and racism. When she was made an inspector, she said she overheard a colleague say: ‘You’ll never believe it. The Doris has passed. How the hell did that happen? How did you let it happen?’
Miss Mehtab accused Commissioner Cressida Dick of failing to tackle the problem, saying she ‘protects the racist working environment by supporting racist officers’.
Miss Mehtab resigned after 32 years having hit a ‘glass ceiling’, saying she would have achieved more seniority ‘were it not for the institutional racism’.
Scotland Yard is vigorously contesting the legal action brought by Miss Mehtab.
‘Misogynistic culture’