The current head of the UK’s largest police force acknowledged that cultural problems in the forces are not “a little bad apple” and called for a change in procedures to allow managers to dismiss the wrong employees quickly.
Sir Stephen House, who has temporarily taken over as commissioner of the Sofia police, also revealed that there was a lack of oversight in the police station where Sarah Everard’s killer served.
Matt is accused of failing to uncover scandals, including the killing of Everard by acting officer Wayne Cousins, insulting messages exchanged by a team at Charing Cross, and a search of a teenage girl at school while she was menstruating.
In his first appearance before the elected Home Affairs Committee, House said a “significant campaign” had been launched to eradicate the “subcultures” of racism and sexism.
He said: “There is a significant campaign in the organization to deal with this completely unacceptable behavior, to eradicate it and to remove those people who exhibit this behavior from the organization as soon as possible and in the right way.
Asked if there were “only a few people”, he replied: “People have talked about a few bad apples, it is clear that this is not the case at all, they are not a few bad apples.
“You can’t just say that Wayne Cousins and a few other people did something wrong – that’s the culmination of the problem, I guess, but there’s a wider problem within the organization that we recognize and deal with.”
Investigations found a lack of oversight in the parliamentary and diplomatic defense unit where Cousins served when he committed his crimes, House said.
Racist and sexist posts on social media by members of the unit that guards the parliament building and VIPs were revealed last month.
An edited photo sent shows George Floyd in his last moments, along with the caption “Pink Floyd.”
Another forged photo was of a badly injured BLM activist, Sasha Johnson, wearing a Black Lives Splatter T-shirt.
House said the officers had launched a major investigation into the unit’s culture and realized that the supervising officers had little to do with regular employees.
“Supervisors can set the tone and attitudes and deal with bad behavior at a very low level in the beginning. In our review of parliamentary and diplomatic protection, we find that levels of oversight are too low. That the way they work is that they don’t see enough of their superiors, and the supervisors don’t know the employees well enough, simply because there aren’t enough of them, “he said.
MEPs were told that employees who had been consistently rude to the public or aimed at stopping and searching on the basis of their race should be eradicated “as soon as possible”.
Interrogated by Tim Lawton, a member of the Conservative Veterans Committee, House said senior officers were sometimes prevented from firing colleagues for misconduct immediately due to lengthy criminal investigations.
“One of the classic problems for us is an employee who has committed an act that is illegal behavior, but it seems that it may be criminal, which will then be referred to the CPS,” he said.
“Investigations can go on in parallel, sometimes it’s easier if the criminal investigation starts first. There are times when, probably out of frustration, I think, “I’d rather fire this person now than wait 18 months for them to go to court, probably be found not guilty, and then have to go through a process of misconduct.” ”
House said that in less serious criminal cases, it would be better for public trust and the public purse if Met’s misconduct procedures could take precedence. “We will get rid of them quickly and it will be seen that justice has been done,” he said.
Police forces in England and Wales are trying to hire 20,000 by next year to replace jobs cut during austerity measures.
House said he was now “less confident” that the Met would meet its goals, with the force to recruit 40,000 candidates next year to replace outgoing officers and recruit 1,800 new recruits.
He said: “We need to hire a little over 4,000 officers over the next 12 months. This means that we need about 40,000 applications over the next 12 months, because we accept approximately one in 10 of the people who apply to us.
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