Constabulary powers in the UK derive from the principle of policing by consent. Articulated by the first commissioners of the Metropolitan police in 1829, it is the principle that the power of the police is granted not through the instruments of the state but by the consent of the public. Police derive their legitimacy solely through the approval and respect of the communities they serve.
The publication of the Macpherson inquiry report into the Met’s handling of the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 was a seminal moment for British policing. It exposed just how far its biggest police force had strayed from the principle of policing by consent and the extent of the appalling levels of institutional racism that had allowed the investigation into a racist murder to be so comprehensively bungled.
