RANK INJUSTICE

24 times more white cops are given promotion

TWENTY-FOUR times more white police officers have been promoted than colleagues with darker skin in the past three years, figures show.

In that period only 32 black officers increased their rank, plus 289 who are Asian or mixed race.

But official statistics show their numbers were dwarfed by the 7,766 white cops promoted.

The findings will spark questions f or chiefs f acing allegations of racism within forces.

Ye s t e r d a y the National Black Police Association said drives to improve diversity had seen a “negligible” impact. It said: “Policing needs to understand the valuable contribution senior BAME officers can bring to policing diverse communities.”

Our figures come a week after police closed their investigation into the 1993 race murder of Stephen Lawrence, 18. And they follow a spate of claims over stopping black motorists – including a Met police inspector who is suing his own force in a race case.

Charles Ehikioya, 55, accused two white officers of stopping him simply because he is black as he drove home from work in South London. The Met has denied his claim.

The force has also been criticised after Labour MP Dawn Butler claimed a car she was travelling in was stopped because she and the driver are black.

Figures we obtained under freedom of information laws show not one of 43 forces had staff as ethnically diverse as t he population it policed. The stats further show that of the 84 times officers were promoted into the most senior positions in the last three years, only one BAME person, recorded as being mixed race, was successful.

In total 24 of 43 police forces in England and Wales have black officer numbers still in single digits.

Only around seven per cent of all officers are from BAME backgrounds, up from 3.9 per cent in 2007.

Of those, four per cent are senior officers, up from 2.8 per cent in 2007.

Home Office bosses say police diversity figures have been damaged because Britain’s biggest force, the Met – which has more BAME officers – has not supplied it with promotion diversity data.

A spokesman for the National Black Police Association said: “Despite an unprecedented number of initiatives – including setting targets for the percentage of BAME officers in forces, positive action programmes and direct entry – the impact on BAME representation in policing has been negligible. Personal development for BAME employees has been equally slow.”

Chief Constable Ian Hopkins, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said: “We have made good progress in this area but acknowledge there is more to do.

“As part of our action plan, we are looking into how we can best encourage BAME officers to apply for senior positions and support them.”

The Home Office said: “We want to see greater diversity in the police, including senior jobs, and the Home Secretary is pushing chief constables to achieve this.

“Our campaign to recruit 20,000 extra officers is a great opportunity to ensure police forces are more representative of the people they serve.”

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MURDERED: Stephen Lawrence

CAR STOP: Labour MP Dawn Butler

POLICING: Forces have been blasted on diversity