Two to three criminal cases against officers are expected to go to court every week in the coming months, the head of the Metropolitan Police has said, as the scandal-hit force attempts to turn itself around.
Speaking to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said that more “painful” stories will come to light as progress moves to eliminate hundreds of corrupt officers who are believed to be serving. “Looking at the next few weeks ahead,” he said, “most weeks there’s two to three officers going to court for criminal cases. It tends to be a mixture of dishonesty, violence, and violence against women and girls type of offences—domestic violence, sex offences.
“There’s two to three a week that are appearing in court… You will see progress from us—step by step—as we chase more trust, less crime and higher standards. We must improve dramatically for London. But lifting the stone and revealing painful truths will not be resolved overnight.”
After the recent scandal of the Met officer David Carrick—who, last week, was convicted of offences which related to 13 women—Home Secretary Suella Braverman added that more concerning incidents regarding police officers could be exposed in the short term. A new Met Police integrity hotline has received hundreds of calls a week, leading to fresh investigations, Sir Mark said, a third of which relate to other forces.
“Even though this is a Met appeal, one in three of the calls coming through roughly are for other forces,” he told the Committee. “We’re passing information on as well. Through our challenges, we’re helping the rest of policing confront some issues as well.”
He urged that they will “probably find many cases where we got it wrong” as they examine hundreds of officers widely accused of sexual offences and domestic abuse, but urged Londoners not to give up hope.
He concluded: “We’ve discussed before, the systemic failings that create these problems of these officers who corrupt our integrity, and as we put in more resource, more assertive tactics, as we are more open to people reporting incidents to us from within and from without the organisation, and as we more determinedly take on these cases, it will tackle the problems that we face. But it won’t be rapid and it will be painful.”
