The image of Vicky McClure, in her latest strong, female cop role, was used the other day by UK counter-terrorism policing to recruit more women into the police.
“Strong female leads aren’t just on TV,” the tweet said, above a picture of the actor as Lana Washington, the dynamic, brave, take-no-nonsense bomb-disposal operative in Jed Mercurio’s latest ITV drama, Trigger Point.
And an attractive lure it is. Washington, with her slicked-back hair, chiselled visage and burning passion to save lives, could well turn the heads of intelligent young female graduates, or girls leaving school, to consider a career in policing.
But sadly this is drama, not reality. The latest poster boys for the Metropolitan police, a force where less than one in three officers are women, well below the national average, are a breed of men who flaunt only their toxic masculinity, aggressive misogyny and deeply embedded rape culture, which they pass off as mere banter.
It is worth repeating a bit of the dialogue of this latest Met police drama, as revealed by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog. The characters are 19 male officers in Charing Cross police station, the time frame 2016-2018. Hardly a period piece, the subject of this excerpt is how to seduce a woman.
“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.”
Or this gem to a female colleague. “I would happily rape you … if I was single … if I was single I would happily chloroform you.”
And this piece of marital advice: “You ever slapped your missus? It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone. Now I know why these daft c**ts are getting murdered by their s****** boyfriends. Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature.”
Followers of this particular horror show will know these latest revelations come after the rape and murder of a young woman, Sarah Everard, by a Met officer, Wayne Couzens, who was part of another unit, the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, which is now subject to a root-and-branch review of its culture by the Met.
Then there were the scenes of officers manhandling women who attended a peaceful vigil for Sarah at Clapham Common after her death.
In previous episodes of how not to persuade women to join up, male officers guarding the murder scene in a London park where the bodies of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry lay fatally stabbed – surely the most sensitive of duties – instead decided to abuse their position to take photos, some showing their bodies, shared them in WhatsApp groups and called the victims “dead birds”.
Yet the Met tried to say this week that this was not about institutional misogyny. Instead, the behaviours exhibited so dramatically at Charing Cross were those of a small number with attitudes and beliefs that were not welcome in the force – AKA the bad apple theory; never mind that the police watchdog, the IOPC, explicitly rejected this theory and said what was on display was part of an offensive Met police culture.
The bad apple excuse has long been trotted out. It was given to me 10 years ago, when, as crime correspondent for this newspaper, I exposed for the first time the hidden reality of police officers abusing their positions to sexually abuse, rape and stalk women who were victims of crime or witnesses – the sort of abuse of power exhibited by Couzens so many years later when he used his warrant card to stop Sarah Everard as she walked home.
While the official line in 2012 to my reporting was the “bad apple” excuse, one senior female officer telephoned to thank me for shining a light on abuse by male officers because it had been known about but swept under the carpet for too long.
Back then, there were, as now, promises of change, talk of a determination throughout policing to identify and remove those who betray the reputation of the overwhelming majority of officers etc, over so many years.
But now it is 2022 and I, like every other women I speak to, am enraged again at the behaviour of police officers. It seems that nothing has changed – indeed, the unchecked, pervasive and violent attitudes to women seem more, not less, prevalent.
A young female relative, a graduate who is brave and intelligent – all the qualities displayed by McClure in her fantasy portrayal of the life of a female cop – told me this week that she was ripping up her application to join the police, so horrified is she by what she sees and hears. When I protested that women such as her could forge change from within, she shook her head in refusal: “Why would I put myself through that in my life, just why?”
Sandra Laville, a former Guardian crime correspondent, is now its environment correspondent
