Sex offence claims against the Met Police double in a year
Beleaguered force has become institutionally misogynistic, say campaigners for change
SEXUAL offence allegations against Metropolitan Police officers have soared to a decade high after doubling in the year following Sarah Everard’s murder.
Figures laying bare the extent of the crisis facing the force show that 251 claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and other sexual offences were made against officers or staff last year.
They include 190 allegations made internally by colleagues – a rise of 104 per cent on 2020 and 206 per cent on 2010. Dozens of the accused held the rank of sergeant or above and around 87 per cent are male.
The findings, released under Freedom of Information laws, are believed to exceed the record number of sexual assault allegations against the force’s personnel in a single year.
It comes as the Met has been hit by repeated scandals, including the kidnap, rape and murder of Ms Everard by a serving officer, Wayne Couzens, in March 2020.
Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was this month forced to resign after the Mayor of London made clear he had no confidence in her plans to reform the service.
Campaigners said the latest revelations suggested the Met was “institutionally misogynistic”. Harriet Wistrich, founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice, said: “The stories of sexual violence are more than the occasional bad apple; they occur in an environment where the locker room lads culture is tolerated and therefore thrives.”
Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said: “The Met has a serious problem with institutional misogyny. While the increased number of recorded allegations may in part reflect greater inclination to report, the data does indicate the scale of offending.”
There is also concern about the lack of consequence for officers facing allegations and the apparent ease with which they secure anonymity in disciplinary proceedings or when charged.
Only 11 out of the 217 Met Police officers or staff accused of sexual offences were charged last year.
Sue Fish, the former chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police who last year spoke about her own experiences of being sexually assaulted by fellow officers, said the number of anonymity orders was “outrageous” and claimed officers and the policing unions “absolutely game the system”.
Ms Fish said: “We’ve got to the point in policing where drink-driving is unacceptable, yet it’s quite the reverse when we come to racism and sexism.”
‘In policing, drink driving is unacceptable yet it’s quite the reverse when we come to racism and sexism’
Officers are known to circle the wagons around accused colleagues, she said, because the culture of policing dictates that “your technical competence as a cop is more important than your behaviours, values and attitudes”.
Last week, three Met Police officers who allegedly shared racist and misogynistic social media messages with Couzens were granted anonymity by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
It is understood their legal representatives argued their welfare could be at risk if they were named.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “There is need for real change in our organisation,” adding that while an “independent and far-reaching review” would be carried out by Baroness Louise Casey, the number of investigators assigned to the professional standards department has increased.