Misogyny in the Met
The Home Secretary this week announced an inquiry into the “systematic failures” that allowed Wayne Couzens to abuse his position as a police officer to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard. Describing Couzens as a “monster”, Priti Patel said a two-part inquiry would examine his predatory behaviour and what his colleagues knew about him, as well as wider issues in policing, including vetting procedures, standards, discipline and workplace culture. “We need answers as to why this was allowed to happen,” she said.
Her announcement – five days after Couzens was handed a whole-life sentence for his crimes ( see page 22) – followed intense criticism of the Met’s response to the case, including its suggestion that people who felt threatened by a lone plainclothes police officer could “wave a bus down”. But Met Commissioner Cressida Dick rejected calls to resign, vowing instead to restore trust in the force.
What the editorials said
The litany of errors which preceded Everard’s murder almost defies belief, said The Daily Telegraph. In 2015, Couzens was seen driving in Kent “naked from the waist down”. He was reported and identified, but not arrested: the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, for whom he worked as an armed officer, wasn’t informed. And when he moved to the Met in 2018, he wasn’t properly vetted. In February this year, he allegedly exposed himself on two further occasions. Police got CCTV footage and his car’s number plate, but no action was taken. “Three days later, [he] kidnapped and murdered Everard.”
How extraordinary then, said The Observer, that instead of focusing on its own failings, the Met has sought to put the onus on women to keep themselves safe from its officers. It even went so far as to suggest women call 999 if they don’t feel safe when stopped by a lone officer. Trust in the police has been “shot to pieces” by this appalling case, said the Daily Mail. Dick’s career has been “tainted by controversy”, yet instead of sacking her, Patel recently extended her contract by two years.
What the commentators said
When Couzens admitted to Everard’s rape and kidnap in June, Dick spoke of the “occasional bad ’un” in the Met’s ranks. But what this case grimly highlights, said Joan Smith on UnHerd, is that “many male officers have contemptuous attitudes towards women”. Last week we learnt that five officers, including three from the Met, allegedly exchanged misogynistic and racist messages with Couzens before his crime. Another allegedly posted a violent graphic online while involved in the search for Everard. Two more are awaiting trial, accused of taking selfies with the bodies of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, the sisters murdered in a London park last year. Yet as we’ve heard from several retired senior policewomen, if female officers challenge such vile behaviour, their male colleagues “close ranks” against them, said Jenny Hjul on Reaction.life. Couzens was supposedly nicknamed “The Rapist”, because he made women feel so uncomfortable. In what other workplace would such “banter” be tolerated?
Couzens is far from “the only rotten apple in the barrel”, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian: at least 15 serving or ex-police officers have killed women since 2009. And in the three years to 2018, said Janice Turner in The Times, there have been 666 reports of domestic abuse by police officers and staff. Yet the vast majority of those reports will go nowhere: the conviction rate for domestic violence among police officers is 3.9%, far lower than the 6.2% average in the general population. It’s a statistic which confirms the widespread conviction that “the police service looks after its own”. In 1999, in the wake of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, the Macpherson report’s excoriation of the Met as “institutionally racist” led to profound shifts in policing and society, said Philip Collins in the London Evening Standard. Now it appears that the Met is “institutionally sexist”, too. If anything positive can arise from the horrific murder of Everard, it can only be that her case, too, “becomes a parable and a catalyst for change”.
What next?
The Met is to conduct a “wholesale review” of its culture, Dick said this week. An independent reviewer is due to be named next week and will have six months to report. The Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has asked to meet Dick, in light of news that Couzens was deployed to Parliament five times last year.
Another serving Met officer was remanded in custody this week after being charged with rape. PC David Carrick, 46, is accused of attacking a woman while off duty in Hertfordshire in September last year. He will appear in court again in November.