Two or more Met officers in court ‘every week’ to face charges

TWO or three Met police officers are appearing in court every week accused of criminal offences, Sir Mark Rowley has revealed, as he warned the drive to clean up the force would unearth even more “ghastly” cases within the ranks.

The Met Commissioner said rooting out corrupt officers would not happen overnight and people should be prepared for “more painful stories” in the coming weeks and months.

Sir Mark was speaking at the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee, where he once again apologised for the failings that had allowed serial rapist David Carrick to carry on serving in the Met.

He said: “He [Carrick] shouldn’t have been a police officer and we have failed. “We haven’t applied the same sense of ruthlessness to guarding our own integrity that we routinely apply to confronting criminals and I am deeply sorry for that.

“I think we have failed as investigators where we should have been more intrusive and joined the dots on this repeated misogyny over decades.

“As leaders, our mindset should have been more determined to spot and root out such a misogynist.”

He was speaking after it emerged that serving Met police constable, Hussain Chehab, who worked as a safer schools officer, had pleaded guilty to child sex offences. Wood Green Crown Court heard how the 22-year-old had multiple sexual relationships with children, and while working in schools kept indecent images of children on his devices.

Sir Mark described it as another “ghastly case” and added: “I am sorry for that and we are going to keep coming back to cases like this as we surface them.”

The Commissioner revealed that a new Met Police hotline to allow people to report concerns about serving officers, was receiving “tens of calls” a week, a third of which related to other forces.

Illustrating the scale of the problem facing the force, Sir Mark said most weeks there were two or three officers appearing in court charged with offences including dishonesty, violence against women and girls and domestic abuse. The Met is currently reviewing around 1,000 officers.