As the search for a new police commissioner draws to a conclusion, newspaper headlines continue to suggest that the Metropolitan police is failing on an unprecedented scale, repeatedly letting down the public that it is there to protect.
And the charge sheet runs long. The policing of the Euro 2020 final at Wembley was marred by scenes of serious disorder, described in an independent review as “a source of national shame”. The author, Louise Casey, reported that policing “did not sufficiently mitigate the risk of ticketless fans, with officers deployed too late in the day”. Yet the Met claimed it provided “one of the most significant and comprehensive policing plans ever committed to football”. This was blatantly not the case and those there know it.
The murder of Sarah Everard by a Met officer in March 2021 shocked the nation. Policing of the vigil following Everard’s death drew criticism from across the political spectrum after women were seen to be handcuffed on the ground before being led away by officers. All this made worse by this week’s disclosure that some officers made arrests having decided the protest itself was too “anti-police”.
Then there was the independent inquiry report, published in June 2021, into the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan in 1987, which reported “a failure to acknowledge professional incompetence, individual’s venal behaviour and managerial and organisational failures”.
Think, too, of the inquest into the deaths of victims of serial killer Stephen Port, which concluded that fundamental failings by the Met into the deaths “probably” contributed to the deaths of three of Port’s victims.
The jailing of two Met officers in December 2021 for taking photographs of the bodies of two women, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, and sharing them with friends and colleagues.
Also the racist, sexist and homophobic messages exchanged by police officers at Charing Cross police station unveiled by the Independent Office for Police Misconduct in February this year, which it seems ultimately led to the resignation of Cressida Dick.
This matters. We all know public confidence in policing is fundamental in a democracy. The mayor’s office for policing and crime survey figures from December 2021 show people agreeing the police “do a good job in the local area”, has dropped to 51% from 68% in 2017. Over the same period, the proportion of Londoners who believe the police treat everyone fairly has fallen from 79% to 64%.
So does this mean the Met is broken beyond repair?
That’s more complex.
Consider the international context, there has been a worldwide decline in public confidence in policing after the global Black Lives Matter protests, with calls to defund the police in many major city police forces.
Consider that Wayne Couzens was caught quickly after an exceptional investigation by the Met. Lord Justice Fulford, in sentencing him, said “This has been the most impressive police investigation that I have encountered.”
The independent police inspectorate examination of the Met, after the findings of the Daniel Morgan panel, did identify areas of failure but also stated that the Met’s anti-corruption command “uses cutting edge technology, seldom seen elsewhere. We were impressed by the standard of anti corruption command”.
Similarly, the inspectorate examined the Met’s policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard stating, “the chorus of those condemning the Metropolitan police, and calling for the resignation of the commissioner, within hours of the arrests – and presumably with very limited understanding of what had happened was unwarranted”.
So, as senior cops across the country vie to become London’s next commissioner, what are the key issues and what should they be aware of?
The politicisation of policing is a modern reality, whether or not police chiefs agree it should be. The Met is in an especially complex case, with a Labour mayor and Conservative home secretary and elections, local and national, not far away.
The Met rightly has an international reputation for its counter-terrorism work and high-end specialist services in tackling serious and organised crime. Yet the experience of Londoners reporting routine low-level matters is too often poor. They have to level up the quality of response across policing. More than any profession, every day has to be their best day. The gap between excellent and poor must be closed.
Cuts from austerity are still felt. These led to a huge reduction in officers and selling of critical infrastructure such as training facilities and local estate. As a result, arrests are discouraged at times because it means taking a car off the road as prisoners are transported across London. Jeff Pope, senior producer of Four Lives, a dramatisation of the murders by Port, expected to find “rampant homophobia” in the Met. But he actually found “the shoddy investigation was due to ineptitude, poor systems and underfunding”.
With welcome investment to recruit back large numbers, the new head of the Met must ensure the standards, ethics and principles of policing are foremost. Policing has to get the basics right and new recruits must know what “excellent” looks like. The highest standards in policing had been our bedrock and must be upheld.
Doing well must be recognised and publicly praised, but those doing wrong must be robustly dealt with. In any organisation, a percentage of the workforce will be exceptional at what they do. Equally, a percentage will be unacceptably poor and let the organisation down. How leaders encourage and enhance great performance while unconditionally tackling those involved in behaviour such as misogyny, racism and bullying, will define that organisation. It is how we react to these respective groups that to a large extent defines how most of the organisation will perform. Warm words do not cut it, strong uncompromising leadership is needed.
The Met has a global brand, with incredible people doing an immense job day in day out. It has been undermined by the actions of a few but those few are too many.
The Met is far from beyond repair. It needs an unwavering focus on ethics, the highest standards and values, together with effective supervision to succeed – and succeed it must. The London mayor and home secretary must allow the new commissioner to get on with what needs to be done. The commissioner needs not just to be respected by the Met but also by the people who live and work in our wonderful capital city.
Every day, the overwhelming majority of the Met do something to make a huge and positive difference to London. But those who don’t should expect to feel the breath of a new commissioner on their neck.
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