On Tuesday, March 21, one of the most long-awaited reports was published in Britain – on the state of affairs in the London police. The report has been in preparation for over a year and fully met expectations: more than 300 pages of text about the countless manifestations of violence, crimes, violations of ethics, negligence committed by police officers and covered by their colleagues.
Commissioner for the protection of the rights of victims of crime, Louise Casey, conducted an investigation into the state of affairs in the London police back in 1999 – after the murder of a black teenager Stephen Lawrence by a police officer. 22 years later, having received the title of baroness, she had to get down to business again. The reason was another high-profile murder committed by a police officer, this time 33-year-old Sarah Everard in March 2021.
Although the two Louise Casey reports are two decades apart, their conclusions are similar: Scotland Yard is mired in racism, misogyny, homophobia and sexism.
But if the first investigation did not cause a very big resonance, then the new one did not leave anyone indifferent in Britain, it seems, from members of the government and parliamentarians to ordinary citizens. And local media have already dubbed it “the most incriminating report” in the history of the Metropolitan Police.
“An independent report on the standards of behavior and internal culture in the London police” (.pdf) has 363 pages. In the preface, Baroness Casey recalls two high-profile criminal cases against London police officers. The first is the case of Wayne Cousins, who kidnapped, raped, and then killed Sarah Everard in March 2021. The second is the case of David Carrick, who in January of this year confessed to raping 12 women. They committed crimes in their free time from the main service.
But, as can be seen from the investigation, these two cases are just the tip of the iceberg. Known throughout the world for the location of its first headquarters, Scotland Yard, the London Police is not only about the valor and courage of its individual employees. “(Police work.— “uh”) attracts villains and aggressors, those who dream of gaining power over their fellow citizens in order to use it to cause harm and discrimination, ”the report says. And there were enough such people in Scotland Yard.
The report describes dozens of cases of police misbehavior, ranging from seemingly harmless jokes and simple negligence to humiliating initiation rites, systematic bullying, and sexual assault.
For example, the document notes that the police are extremely careless in the storage of physical evidence. It refers to “overcrowded, dilapidated or broken refrigerators and freezers containing evidence,” including semen samples obtained during rape investigations. According to one of the police officers interviewed for the report, last year one of the refrigerators broke during the summer heat, causing all the samples to become unusable, and the police simply closed all the rape cases that included those samples.
One of the police officers, a Sikh by religion, faced bullying from colleagues. They thought it amusing to cut off his beard. Another Sikh once found his turban in a shoebox. And a Muslim policeman was once put pieces of ham in his shoes, which he did not report to his superiors in order to avoid problems.
Another common occurrence in the London Police is humiliating initiation rites. The report describes cases in which girls who entered the service were forced to eat pie until they began to feel sick. Those who refused to undergo such a rite were avoided in every possible way and were considered “not fitting into the team,” one of the police officers said. Among men, an equally humiliating way of being accepted into officers is common, when senior officers urinate on a recruit in the shower. In addition, a case of rape of a newcomer in the shower by a senior in rank became known.
Complaining about harassment does nothing to help victims, the report says. Even if it is not about racist jokes and bullying, but about sexual violence.
One of the female police officers said that she was subjected to constant sexual violence by a police officer she knew, with whom she worked on the same team. According to her, everyone knew about what was happening, but no one stood up to her defense. After her complaint, the case was considered by six investigators in only one year. But each time only the victim was interrogated. As a result, she tried to commit suicide. During the two years of investigation, the alleged rapist was never charged.
After the release of the report of Baroness Casey, the head of the London police, Sir Mark Rowley, has already apologized to the residents of the city. “It’s horrible. Reading this report, you experience a whole range of emotions – from anger to disappointment and shame, ”he said.