Taking on the law

A troubled timeline

2010 Ms Howard is accepted on to a training course to become a firearms officer

January 2012 She gets a new superior, Dave Kelly, later the centre of her complaint. Chosen by a chief superintendent, she appears in a photoshoot for a magazine article about the 10,000 men and women on duty during the Olympics November 2012

Ms Howard makes a formal complaint after discovering Mr Kelly spied on her using CCTV

July 2014 A tribunal rules that she was bullied, harassed and victimised as one of only two black officers in the 700-strong Diplomatic Protection Group

2015 She quits the Met after being accused of physical abuse of an ex-partner and having indecent images on her phone – which was an innocent picture of her daughter

2016 Her first application to join the IPCC is rejected, her second, using another surname, is accepted March 2017 She leaves her job at the IPCC after it decided against renewing her contract