The author of the devastating report on the Metropolitan police has criticised the force’s commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, for refusing to accept her description of the force as institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic, describing his reasoning as “hollow”.
Louise Casey’s report on Tuesday excoriated the Met and found widespread bias against its own staff and the public, with officers found to have got away with acts so serious they amount to crimes.
The report also said stop and search was biased, the force had made choices to degrade its service to women and rarely caught the men who attack them, and was suffering from broken trust with the public it serves.
Rowley accepted her findings and said that bias was systemic but refused the label of “institutional” believing it was politicised and ambiguous.
Lady Casey hit back on Wednesday and told the police and crime committee of the London assembly that Rowley was wrong, but stressed he was the right choice to reform the Met.
Casey said: “When people say something’s become politicised, it’s often a get out of jail card for the word difficult. I’ve heard it so many times, I’m sorry, you’re dealing with a dinosaur, I’ve been around a long time. And sometimes it is right that we step into what is difficult.”
Casey said of black Londoners’ experience of the Met: “They are over-policed and under-protected. If a woman is black she is 65% more likely to be on the receiving end of domestic violence.”
The Met was first found to be institutionally racist in 1999 by the official inquiry into why the racist killers of Stephen Lawrence had escaped justice. That inquiry followed a campaign led by his, mother Doreen Lawrence.
Casey said: “This was the moment to say to Doreen Lawrence, the countless people out there: ’Yeah, this is institutional.’ And then you can move on and have a straightforward and direct discussion with the people of London.
“Because it just rings hollow to say: ‘I don’t like the word and it is not a word I would use.’ And I know Mark Rowley, he is a man of utter decency and integrity.”
Rowley repeated his reasons when he appeared before the same committee and vowed that he was determined to reform the Met and that change was non-negotiable: “They’ve got two choices. I’m serious about this. We’re not pussy-footing around these subjects.
“The ones who are not up for it, we will take on. The minority, if they do not want to get on the bus, that’s their problem, we will sort them out.”
The commissioner gave this analogy to explain the toxic officers in his force and said: “This is about the body of the Met. It’s not about a few bacteria that have got into the system.
“It’s about the immune system has not been strong enough so they’re not the majority of cells, but they’ve got more of a foothold and are having more influence than they ought to have done. This is about us systemically getting stronger to repel that from our system.”
The reverberations from the report pushed the wholesale failings of the Met to the top of the political agenda.
At prime minister’s questions, the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, accused the government of neglect: “No wonder the Casey report criticised what she calls the government’s hands-off attitude to policing over the last 13 years, but let’s call it what it really is: sheer negligence.
“On his watch, rape charges are 1.6%. Yet the government still hasn’t backed Labour’s plan to have proper high-quality rape and serious sexual offences units in every police force. Why not?”
Rishi Sunak hit back and tried to embarrass the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan: “What Louise Casey also says is that primary public accountability of the Met sits with the mayor of London. She described that relationship between the mayor and the Met as, in her words, dysfunctional.
“So I hope when he stands up he will also confirm to the house that he will take up these matters with the Labour mayor of London so that he plays his part.”
