A number of Metropolitan Police officers have been caught sharing messages about hitting and raping women, and also making racist and homophobic remarks, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) reports.
The messages are said to have included a reference to the Holocaust, deaths of Black babies, and violence against the public. The officers, who were based mainly at the Charing Cross police station, reportedly made the majority of these hateful and offensive remarks between 2016 and 2018. The messages that were found were shared across WhatsApp and Facebook amongst a group of up to 19 officers.
The revelations have come after the Met has continued to face pressure and inquiries into its culture after Wayne Couzens used his position as a police officer to kidnap, rape, and murder Sarah Everard. The Met is also under pressure in regards to its handling of the recent Downing Street parties during the UK lockdown.
As reported by The Guardian, here are some of the comments that were found by the IOPC:
“One male officer wrote to a female officer: ‘I would happily rape you… if I was single… if I was single I would happily chloroform you.’ Another officer advocated violence: ‘Getting a woman into bed is like spreading butter. It can be done with a bit of effort using a credit card, but it’s quicker and easier just to use a knife.’ Police officers wrote about attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child. Numerous messages about rape and ‘raping’ each other were sent in two WhatsApp groups and one Facebook group. One officer messaged another saying he was going to attack his partner and wrote: ‘Swear to got [sic] I’m going to smack her’. Another message shows an officer bragging about visiting a sex worker when he was using steroids.”
The IOPC has said that those officers who knew about the messages have been afraid to speak out, challenge, or report the messages. In the official report, it read: “Several spoke of how when people spoke out about this behaviour, they were harassed, humiliated and excluded. Challenging sexual harassment led to additional problems.
“Female officers told us they would be treated as the ‘weary female’, told it was part of police culture, that they should accept, ‘play the game or stay quiet’, or leave. We also obtained evidence that reports of sexual harassment were not dealt with sensitively within the MPS [Metropolitan police service].”
London Mayor Saqid Khan has now put Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick “on notice” following this “shocking” revelation.
“The Mayor made clear to the Commissioner how angry he is with a return to the bad days of the Met of his childhood in the 1970s and 80s, and that neither he nor Londoners will put up with this,” a spokesperson for Mr Khan has said. “He has put the Commissioner on notice. He said the Met needs to urgently show it has an effective plan for restoring the trust and confidence of Londoners in the police and to drive out the culture of racism, homophobia, bullying and misogyny which clearly still exists within its ranks.”
