1 of 2 | An independent review of internal protocols accuses the London Metropolitan Police of promoting a culture that allows officers to flout the law with impunity, and pointed to a host of senior police officials who have concealed criminal complaints against hundreds of deputies. File Photo courtesy of London Metropolitan Police/UPI
Oct. 17 (UPI) -- An independent review of London's Metropolitan Police has found rampant allegations of racism, fraud and sexual assaults among the ranks, adding that departmental leadership continues to turn a blind eye to criminal conduct.
The report was released Monday at the conclusion of a commission led by Louise Casey, a bureaucratic holdover from the administration of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. She was appointed to look into the Met's internal protocols following the conviction of Officer Wayne Couzens in the brutal murder of Sarah Everard, who was kidnapped while walking home in South London in early 2021.
The highly-anticipated report accuses Greater London's main police force of promoting a culture that allows officers to flout the law with impunity and pointed to senior lieutenants who have concealed criminal complaints against hundreds of deputies.
Newly-appointed Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley responded to the report immediately, saying he was "appalled" at the findings, and added that his department "cannot continue" to harbor bad apples.
"If you're a leader, anything that you don't act on, you're as guilty as the offender," Rowley told BBC Radio 4's Today program on Monday. "That you walk by, you endorse. I'm deadly serious about this. We're going to raise our game we're going to be more ruthless and we're going to root these people out."
The review unearthed complaints against nearly 2,000 officers, including 500 who were charged with misconduct as many as five times, but nearly all have stayed on the job due to the protection of their superiors.
Fewer than 1% who face charges have been dismissed from the force, the report found.
Rowley said the misconduct among the officers "undermines our integrity" and would have warranted their immediate dismissal under ordinary circumstances.
The report also noted that many honest officers were disciplined for speaking out against misconduct and that Black deputies had faced internal discipline and terminations at a much higher rate than their White counterparts.
Later in the interview with BBC, Rowley said he was determined to clean house, noting that the force had overcome many similar challenges before.
"Police had bigger problems in the past with corruption, where it was relationships perhaps between detectives and criminals," he said. "And we've had a big effect on that over the last two or three decades. That was using counter-crime tactics to go after those police officers."
