What Rowley hasn't yet got right at the Met

Charing Cross again. 

For the second time in three years the police station in the heart of London’s West End is at the centre of a misconduct scandal which raises searching questions about leadership, supervision and culture in the Metropolitan Police. 

In February 2022, a coruscating report found that officers, mainly based at Charing Cross, had joked about rape, killing black children and beating their wives. Among a stream of discriminatory and abusive WhatsApp messages and FaceBook chat group posts was one “joke”, sent by a male officer to a female colleague, which read: “I would happily rape you.”  

Within ten days of the report’s publication, the Met Commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, who was already facing intense pressure following the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by one of her officers, had resigned.  In the past week, her successor, Sir Mark Rowley, has been fending off speculation that he too may be forced to quit after undercover filming at Charing Cross by a journalist from the BBC’s Panorama programme.

For seven months, Rory Bibb worked as a designated detention officer in the custody suite at Charing Cross, secretly recording his police colleagues as they booked in suspects, chatted in the station courtyard and relaxed over drinks after work. He filmed officers making sexualised comments, sharing racist views about immigrants and Muslims and boasting about using excessive force. 

The documentary makes for deeply depressing viewing, highlighting how far Britain’s biggest police force has to go before it restores its reputation and earns the trust of Londoners from all communities. It’s doubly dispiriting because it shows that lessons from the 2022 Charing Cross report haven’t been learned. It’s as though that document, from the Independent Office for Police Conduct, never even existed. 

One of its principal recommendations was for a dramatic improvement in the way police officers are supervised. But the footage in the BBC programme highlighted a complete absence of effective supervision and strong local leadership.  Custody sergeants who work in cellblocks are very much the officers in charge - and they set the tone for the police constables and civilian detention staff who work under them. If custody sergeants make sexist remarks and use force inappropriately it is no surprise that more junior officers feel they can do so too. The fact that such behaviour went on for months, apparently unchecked, also indicates there was a glaring lack of oversight by those above them. Sir Paul Stephenson, who served as Met Commissioner between 2008 and 2011, championed the need for “intrusive supervision”, where police sergeants, inspectors and superintendents challenge poor behaviour and performance rather than let it happen. There was little sign of that at Charing Cross.

Scotland Yard’s response to the programme was swift. It didn’t seek to downplay what was uncovered and has already made sweeping changes to Charing Cross itself, replacing the entire custody team and its leaders. Nine officers and one staff member have been suspended, with two other officers removed from frontline duties.  A custody sergeant has been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice over an incident that took place a day after the show went out.  More broadly, Rowley has claimed that the Met is conducting the “biggest police corruption clear-out in British history” with almost 1,500 officers and staff having departed over the last three years. “We will be relentless until the job is finished,” he said.

What Panorama suggests, however, is that the job will never be “finished” and it is naive to pretend otherwise. Scotland Yard promised change a quarter of a century ago after the Macpherson Report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence labelled the force "institutionally racist", yet Baroness Louise Casey’s damning review in 2023 found that racism was still embedded in the Met, along with sexism and homophobia. Last week’s programme confirms her findings, even if Rowley has quibbled with her use of the word "institutional". Cultural reform is a continual process that must adapt and evolve as new recruits sign up and as officers are promoted. 

There will doubtless be other pockets and corners of the Met where bigotry and discrimination continue to fester, although Rowley believes that some of the behaviour, which he likens to “cancer”, has been driven “underground” by his anti-corruption drive. That should strengthen the case for him to deploy the kind of covert surveillance techniques that Panorama used, to root it out. 

But it is also vital that police officers have the support they need to cope with the unique challenges of their work - challenges highlighted by the shocking terrorist attack at a synagogue in Manchester. There, officers ran towards the danger, thinking about the safety of others before their own. Custody suites are fraught with risk, too. They are conveyor belts of misery, mental health problems and violence; no one who is brought there wants to be there. On busy days, it is policing at its most pressured and relentless. That does not provide an excuse for misconduct of any sort but it heightens the need for close monitoring of the officers and staff who spend hour after hour after hour in that environment.

Three years ago, the Metropolitan Police was placed in the policing version of ‘special measures’, known as Engage, by the Inspectorate of Constabulary, HMICFRS. The move followed a series of high-profile incidents, including Sarah Everard’s murder, that the watchdog said had created a “chilling effect on public trust and confidence”. In January this year, the Inspectorate removed the Met from Engage saying it had made “good progress”.  In some respects, that might be so. But the appalling footage from the Panorama programme suggests the decision may have been premature. Despite Rowley’s robust leadership this is still a police force which is a long way from where it needs to be.