Catalogue of shocking failures sees Met placed under special measures

2022-06-28

Humiliation for Scotland Yard: Catalogue of shocking failures sees Met placed under special measures

Met failed to record crimes and ignored almost all anti-social behaviour victims
They failed vulnerable victims and neglected online child abuse referral backlog
Police watchdog said there were ‘systemic concerns’ about Met’s performance
Damning indictment comes after Cressida Dick was forced to quit after scandals
Such as Sarah Everard’s murder and cops jailed for taking murder victim photos

Scotland Yard was placed under special measures yesterday after a devastating inspection revealed a catalogue of new failures.

Officers with Britain’s biggest police force failed to record tens of thousands of crimes, ignored almost all victims of anti-social behaviour, let down vulnerable victims and neglected a huge backlog of online child abuse referrals.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) announced that ‘systemic concerns’ about the force’s performance raised by a new inspection had been so grave that the force needed to be put under special measures.

The unprecedented step means the Metropolitan Police will face external monitoring and must come up with an improvement plan.

Yesterday a leaked letter from the police inspectorate revealed the force is failing victims across the board. The new annual inspection found:

Around 69,000 crimes are going unrecorded each year and almost no crimes are recorded of anti-social behaviour.

Handling of 999 calls is below national standards.
There is insufficient supervision and oversight of some investigations.
Officers fail to record the reason for a stop and search properly in a quarter of cases.
The force has insufficient capacity to meet demand in public protection.
There is a ‘persistently large backlog’ of online child abuse referrals.

Last night a war of words broke out as Home Secretary Priti Patel and London Mayor Sadiq Khan clashed over who was responsible for the fiasco.

In a leaked letter to Acting Scotland Yard Commissioner Sir Stephen House, Her Majesty’s Inspector Matt Parr warned the succession of scandals and ‘systemic concerns’ about the force’s performance is ‘likely to have a chilling effect on public trust and confidence in the Met’.

Sarah Everard was abducted, raped and murdered by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens

In June 2020 sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were stabbed to death and officers Deniz Jaffer, 47, and Jamie Lewis, 33, took photos at the scene in Wembley

In the new inspection, which has yet to be made public in full, Mr Parr condemned the force’s performance in handling 999 and non-emergency calls, saying it is ‘falling far short of national standards’, with staff failing to assess vulnerability, identify repeat victims and not offering advice about preserving evidence to catch offenders.

He blasted the force for ignoring crimes, saying it had ‘a barely adequate standard of crime recording accuracy, with an estimated 69,000 crimes going unrecorded each year, less than half of crime recorded within 24 hours, and almost no crimes recorded when victims report antisocial behaviour against them’.

Mr Parr said victims were not told when officers were dropping their case, they were not given appropriate support, and officers were not seeking their views before finalising crime reports.

He went on to criticise ‘the lack of a detailed understanding of capacity and capability across all aspects of policing’, saying the Metropolitan Police had ‘an insufficiently comprehensive understanding of demand’.

The scandals that have rocked the capital’s force

OPERATION MIDLAND

In 2014 the notorious investigation was sanctioned by Dame Cressida Dick, then a high-ranking officer at Scotland Yard.

The disastrous inquiry into spurious VIP child sex abuse allegations saw innocent men, including the late Lord Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, pursued by the force.

Several men died, with reputations tarnished, before the allegations were disproved.

NICOLE SMALLMAN AND BIBAA HENRY MURDERS

In June 2020 two officers were tasked with guarding a crime scene where sisters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, had been stabbed to death.

Officers Deniz Jaffer, 47, and Jamie Lewis, 33, took photos at the scene in Wembley, then shared them in two WhatsApp groups. They were each jailed for two years and nine months last December.

SARAH EVERARD MURDER

In March last year, 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard was abducted, raped and murdered by serving officer Wayne Couzens. The force’s officers were accused of ‘manhandling’ women at a Clapham Common vigil staged ten days after her disappearance.

DANIEL MORGAN INQUIRY

In June last year a report into the unsolved 1987 murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan accused the Metropolitan Police of ‘institutional corruption’.

STEPHEN PORT INVESTIGATION

An inquest jury ruled in December that failures by Yard detectives contributed to the deaths of a serial killer’s three final victims. Stephen Port killed four men in their 20s by giving them overdoses of the date rape drug GHB at his east London home in 2014 and 2015. The inquest found police failed to carry out basic checks. A solicitor for the families said the Met’s actions were driven in part by homophobia. The Independent Office for Police Conduct is to re-investigate the force’s handling of the case.

CHARING CROSS SCANDAL

In February the IOPC exposed conduct by officers based at Charing Cross police station who were found to have joked about rape, killing black children and beating their wives.

BIANCA WILLIAMS

Five officers are to face a gross misconduct hearing over their stop and search of Team GB sprinter Bianca Williams in 2020. She and her partner were stopped in west London. Nothing illegal was found and the couple, who are black, claim they were racially profiled.

Last week Scotland Yard revealed eight referrals about strip searches of children have been made to the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) after two teenage girls were strip-searched by officers while they were menstruating.

Mr Parr also highlighted the investigation into four murders by serial killer Stephen Port, which he said was marred by ‘seemingly incomprehensible failures’.

Mr Parr said Scotland Yard ‘hasn’t always shown a great willingness’ to learn from mistakes, echoing a report in March when he warned the ‘arrogant, secretive and lethargic’ force was failing to tackle corruption. The Metropolitan Police is now only one of a handful of forces ever to be placed under special measures, which the inspectorate refer to as an ‘engage phase’.

The move triggered a row between Miss Patel and Mr Khan. In a statement the Home Secretary said: ‘I support the action that HMICFRS has taken today to highlight their failings – and I expect the Met and the London Mayor to take immediate action to begin addressing them.’

The damning indictment comes after Commissioner Cressida Dick was forced to quit in February following a torrid year of scandals which saw the murder of Sarah Everard by one of her officers, the force being branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ by an independent inquiry and two officers jailed for photographing bodies of murder victims. Pictured left to right: Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Nick Bramall, Alastair Morgan, Harvey Proctor, Michael Mcmanus, Paul Gambaccini, and Lady Diana Brittan

But Mr Khan hit back, pointing out that he had been the one to force out Dame Cressida. A source close to the mayor said: ‘He will take no lessons in policing from the Home Secretary, who clearly was happy with the status quo and didn’t want any action taken.’

Sir Stephen has been summoned to a meeting next month to discuss a plan of action before a new commissioner is appointed.

A Met spokesman said: ‘We are determined to be a police service Londoners can be proud of. We are talking to the Inspectorate about next steps.’

Source: Read Full Article