More than 600 sexual and domestic abuse allegations against its own officers are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police, the force has said.
The Domestic and Sexual Offences (Daso) unit was set up in January to investigate Met Police officers who have been accused of such offences.
It was looking into 625 misconduct allegations, ranging from “inappropriate behaviour” to criminal offences, as of 18 August.
Detective Superintendent Annette Clark, Daso’s senior leader, told the BBC the team’s experience lies in safeguarding – “particularly understanding domestic abuse, and understanding sexual offences” – rather than internal investigations.
She said her team is disgusted by the behaviour of abusive officers, and warned: “We don’t want them in the organisation and we need to get rid of them.”
Alleged victims include members of the public and other police officers, with a significant number of cases being examined by the unit involving domestic abuse between a couple who are both serving in the police.
Ms Clark notes many officers who work alongside her have said: “I want to do this. I want to come and work in professional standards to ensure we get out the bad cops.”
The rape and murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021 by then-serving Met police officer Wayne Couzens, who pretended to be a plain clothes officer to manipulate his victim, led the force to announce it would conduct an “urgent review” of all allegations of sexual misconduct and domestic abuse against officers.
The Met has been shaken by groups of officers found to have exchanged deeply offensive messages on social media.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley announced last week a new Anti-Corruption and Abuse Command would root out “criminal colleagues”, and work to “identify and investigate those who are predatory, who abuse their position of trust – for their personal, financial or sexual advantage – whether on duty, off duty, in person or online.”
He added: “You will see over my tenure, you will see more people being removed from the force for these sort of ghastly acts because we’re going to turn the stones over.”
