The independent review said that Met's new chief is under pressure to reform Britain's biggest police force and is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
The review was commissioned in 2021 by Met's Chief Cressida Dick after a serving officer was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard in a case that shocked the country and led to subsequent crimes against women.
The report said that institutional racism, sexism and homophobia are within the organization in terms of how officers and staff are treated, and outside the organization in terms of how communities are policed. The independent review, led by Louise Casey, found severe failings across the Met that it believes will need radical reform. It comes over two decades after a 1999 investigation into the murder of Black teenager Stephen Lawrence identified institutional racism within the force over its response to the killing.
The review found that policing by consent was broken in the capital, and that the Met's culture of defensiveness and denial about the scale of its problems was the biggest barrier to fixing the force.
What label or description you use to look at it, the evidence is absolutely clear that as an institution, are they prejudiced and discriminatory? Casey told reporters they are, and they are, ahead of the report's release.
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Met Commissioner Mark Rowley, Britain's most senior police officer, told reporters: We've let Londoners down and we've let our frontline down and this report paints that vividly I'm deeply sorry. The report generates a lot of emotions: anger, frustration, embarrassment. He added that it generates resolve most of all. He said that the force's professional standards department had been stepped up, and that we are sacking officers at a faster rate because of their help. He said the job was not done yet.
I can't say I've reduced the risk of a bad officer to zero yet, but every day we're rooting people out and we're making progress, he said, when asked if there were still officers accused of crimes such as murder, rape and domestic abuse serving in the force.
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The 360-page report said the force needed strong leadership, a women's protection service, and a new children's strategy, among other recommendations for reform.
Casey said last October that the force took 400 days on average to resolve misconduct allegations against its officers.
I just think Everard's case is so dreadful and needs to be a moment that change came, but change didn't come. Casey said that this report has to carry that and has to take responsibility for getting the change needed.