Britain’s biggest police force is institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, a damning review has found, and there may be more officers like killer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick. The Metropolitan Police has failed to protect the public from officers who abuse women, organisational changes have put women and children at greater risk and female officers and staff routinely experience sexism, the report has said.
There are racist officers and staff and a “deep-seated homophobia” exists in the organisation, it found. The review by Baroness Louise Casey, commissioned in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, is “rigorous, stark and unsparing”, she said.
Asked if there could be more officers like Couzens and Carrick in the force, she said: “I cannot sufficiently assure you that that is not the case.” Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said he accepted the “diagnosis” of prejudice in the force, but would not use the term institutional because he viewed it as politicised and ambiguous.
