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British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct 2 called for a “robust” response by the head of London’s Metropolitan Police.
COPENHAGEN - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct 2 called for a “robust” response by the head of London’s Metropolitan Police after a BBC undercover report showed officers displaying racism and misogyny.
“I’ve not yet seen the footage, but I’ve had it described to me, and it’s shocking, and I’m glad the commissioner is responding. He needs to be very robust in his response,” Mr Starmer told reporters ahead of a meeting with European leaders in Copenhagen.
BBC reporter Rory Bibb spent seven months until January 2025 working in a civilian role as a detention officer in the custody suite of Charing Cross police station in central London.
The resulting BBC Panorama documentary uncovered misogynistic, racist and Islamophobic misconduct by officers, prompting an apology from Met Commissioner Mark Rowley on Oct 1.
“Officers behaving in such appalling, criminal ways, let down our communities,” Commissioner Rowley said in a statement.
“The behaviour depicted in this programme is reprehensible and completely unacceptable,” he added.
The custody team at the Charing Cross station featured in the report has been disbanded, he said.
During the reporter’s time undercover, “officers called for immigrants to be shot, revelled in the use of force and were dismissive of rape claims”, the BBC said in a statement.
Several male police officers were secretly filmed making shocking statements, including that a detainee who had overstayed his visa should have “a bullet through his head”, and that migrants from Algeria and Somalia were “scum”.
The reputation of British policing has been in tatters since the 2021 kidnap, rape and murder of marketing executive Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer who was later jailed for life.
In another shocking case, an officer from the same unit in 2024 received 36 life sentences for a “monstrous” string of 71 sexual offences, including the rapes of 12 women.
In the year to March 2024, nearly 600 officers in England and Wales were sacked.
The Met alone in January 2023 revealed that 1,071 officers in the 40,000-strong force of staff and officers had been under investigation for domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.
England and Wales has a police workforce of more than 147,000 across the 43 forces. AFP
[SRC] https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/british-pm-urges-robust-response-to-shocking-police-misconduct-report
