EXCLUSIVE: “Toxic racist Met incapable of reform”

OFFICERS in the Metropolitan Police are victims of a toxic and racist culture, the former head of complaints into the force has told Eastern Eye.

Ex-regional director for London at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), Sal Naseem, insisted the Met needed urgent structural reform.

He described the system of policing as being broken.

“History shows us [that] the Metropolitan Police Service is incapable of the sort of reform that it always says that it will do after the latest tragedy or after the latest scandal that hits it,” said Naseem.

“You had the Baroness Casey review, which showed that, nearly a quarter of a century on from the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the Metropolitan Police has actually got worse.

“No longer is it only institutionally racist, it's now also recognised as being institutionally homophobic and institutionally misogynistic.

“There is no basis in history to accept that the Metropolitan Police, as an organisation, is capable of the sort of reform that it's serving police officers need, but also Londoners need.”

In his recently published memoirs, the best-selling author catalogues his experiences of investigating some of the highest profile racism complaints faced by the UK’s biggest crime squad during more than five years in charge.

They included the stop and search of Olympians, Bianca Williams and Ricardo Dos Santos; officers who took and shared photos of murder victims Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry on WhatsApp; and the police shooting of Chris Kaba.

The Met, he said, had lost the trust of the communities they serve.

“The truth of it is, which the Met I don't think really acknowledge in the way they need to, is that it has been broken with many communities for decades.

“You've got this policing by consent model, which is fragmented, it's been broken.

“And it's not just the case it has been broken just very recently but for a long time.

“I've been in meetings with the community, trying to understand concerns.

“A mother has told me that how her son had been mugged, and when she tried to get him to engage and report it to the police, that was the last thing he was willing to do, the last thing.”

That level of mistrust is also evident inside the force, said Naseem.

“There is a scale of issue inside the Met, certainly when I was there, which wasn't being acknowledged around really toxic culture, which involved officers behaving in the most awful ways.

“Some of that sometimes would come out with members of the public, but a huge proportion of that was actually internally where officers, female officers, officers of colour and officers of a different identity would be bullied, would be harassed, and their lives would be made generally miserable, sometimes by individual officers, but also the systems that were inside the Met.

“The systems which were institutionally racist, which enforced disproportionality and misconduct outcomes didn’t allow the right sort of representation to come through the ranks.”

Underground racism

Naseem is not alone in thinking that the Met’s culture is both toxic and racist.

The president of the National Black Police Association (NBPA), Andy George, told Eastern Eye that things had got worse and was the worst in the country.

“Working with the Metropolitan Black Police Association, and a number of other police services across the UK, I get the benchmark,” said the chief inspector.

“I get to see the good, the bad and the indifferent, and I would completely agree that racism in the Metropolitan Police is the most extreme and acute it is anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

“What we've seen over the last few years as well, is a large-scale pushback on the energy that was created after George Floyd's murder and the Black Lives Matter protests.

“I would say we’ve moved to a pre-Macpherson era in policing around racism.

“We had a period where there was a lot of activity, and what happened during that period was that racism was driven a little bit more underground.

“Policing got better with its PR but certainly in the last two years, we have definitely seen a large increase in racism.”

George said that the Met’s leadership had allowed officers to become more overtly racist.

When the current commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, first took office he refused to meet the NBPA, said its president.

“I'm never going to take things personally, but that kind of laid the groundwork for how committed he was to finding solutions to these long, deep, rooted issues.

“He was brought in with a mandate to completely reform the Met, and what we found is him continually choosing to defend the workforce versus the community, and it's almost become a binary choice like that.

“He has pushed, recently, again, for an accountability review.

“There's always been issues in the Met, but it's definitely come a lot more in your face.”

Police trust

The Met rejected the idea they were not tackling the problem.

They have a so-called “race action plan” which seeks to make sure the Met “become an anti-racist organisation and a service that is more inclusive, diverse and representative of London”.

In a statement, Commander James Harman said, “We have been entirely open about the challenges facing the Met and our ongoing drive to improve our standards and culture and rid our organisation of those who are not fit to serve.

“We know wrongdoing by our officers has a huge impact on the trust and confidence Londoners have in us.

“Amid the strongest doubling down on standards in the Met for 50 years, we have reformed our approach with a huge investment in professional standards officers and new ways of working to proactively find and investigate criminal and conduct matters involving our staff.

“Before the commissioner’s drive on standards the Met was typically dismissing 30 officers every six months.

“In the first nine months of this year we dismissed just under 100 officers - more than double.

“This still remains a very small percentage of our workforce with the vast majority acting with the professionalism and dedication to their duties we would expect.”

But the NBPA president suggested that the Met should delve deeper into those figures.

“I would say definitely the numbers have gone up,” George said.

“But I would also then ask what the representation of black and Asian officers are within that, because we do see a different a different standard being pushed towards black and Asian people.”

He cited the case of a social media post on 11 July this year on X, formerly known as Twitter, where two officers stopped and searched a black man.

But in the post the man’s face was covered by a spade – a racial epithet harking back decades and well-known within the police and other professions, countered George.

“Within six days that was dealt with, and that was going through DPS (directorate of professional standards) coming back to the district, and they said they find that was a genuine mistake after six days,” he said.

“We are dealing with people that are getting misconduct investigations that last seven, eight, nine months.

“What we've seen again and again and again is the commissioner defending white officers versus black communities, and that has been played out in our experiences of what we would say is double standards or different standards when it comes to misconduct investigations.”

Broken system

The Met have since deleted the post.

The mayor of London’s office said Sadiq Khan would not only support the Met, but he would hold them to account while they delivered their reforms.

This would make sure the force had the confidence and trust of all Londoners, said a spokesperson.

“When the public trust the police, they come forward with information, they develop relationships with local neighbourhood officers and are more likely to reach out – all of this helps to tackle crime.

“So, this relationship is pivotal to tackling violence, robbery, sexual assault, anti-social behaviour and keeping our communities safe.

“The Met have a plan for reform and are making progress, despite the unprecedented demand on its services and government underfunding over many years.

“But the mayor won’t be satisfied until we have the systematic, cultural reform and community reset that is needed, and Sadiq will continue to do everything in his power to support and hold the police to account to build a safer and fairer London for all.”

Last month (21 October), a jury cleared a police officer, Martyn Blake, of the murder of black Londoner, Chris Kaba.

The Old Bailey heard that in September 2022, Kaba tried to ram his way free after being boxed in by police cars during the stop.

Blake said that made him think one of his colleagues would be killed, and he opened fire to stop the car, the jury heard.

Kaba died from bullet to his head.

"No police officer is above the law, but we have been clear the system holding police to account is broken," said the Met commissioner after the verdict.

Sal Naseem, former London director for the IOPC, told Eastern Eye that the entire system of complaints against the police needed to be fixed.

“Any attempt to reform the police complaint system, leave aside firearms officers for a second, and what you're looking at is a lowering of the threshold for accountability more broadly,” he argued.

“My fundamental problem is that the Metropolitan Police has no moral legitimacy to try and weaken police accountability in this country when the very system that exists in this country is as a result of scandal after scandal.

“And the reason that it exists in its current form is because of the scandals that's afflicted the Met, not national policing, generally, specifically the Metropolitan Police.

“I worry that this really difficult case is being used as a vehicle to weaken what little police accountability that you have in England and Wales and that whole system.

“I don't think it should be done piecemeal, I don't think it should be done in a reactionary way.

“What I think needs to happen is the whole system needs reform.

“I will say this candidly, I believe the whole system, the police complaint system, is broken.

“It leaves police officers broken.

“Bereaved families and complainants do not, in the vast majority of cases feel they get the sort of accountability that they want or need, and it takes too long.”

Panic attack

Naseem also revealed that his time at the IOPC took a toll on his health.

He ended up in hospital after thinking he was having a heart attack.

Doctors diagnosed a severe panic attack, the former IOPC boss told this newspaper, something of which he was ashamed and embarrassed.

“That situation came about because of one particular individual, and how they kind of campaigned against me,” said Naseem.

“But the reason I use the word shame is because I've never let that happen to me before.

“I grew up in an environment which was hostile, violent and racist, the type of racism

that I thought was part of yesteryear, but we've seen it come back this year.

“We had knives held to you, dogs set on you, your windows broken, and I've dealt with really hard, difficult situations professionally as well.

“Nobody had ever managed to break me down like that, and yet it happened to me and even to this day, my overriding emotion is not anger at that person.

“It's a combination of shame and embarrassment, and yet, I documented it in the book because I want other people to understand what it's like when you try and affect the type of change that I did in that type of system.

“But also, what can happen and to try and learn from what I went through to avoid some of the pitfalls that I fell into.”

The IOPC rejected that it had a toxic culture.

A spokesperson told Eastern Eye, “We are saddened to hear Sal Naseem's views of the IOPC, he left 18 months ago, during his more than eight years with us he made a huge contribution to building confidence in the police complaints system.

“For some time, we have said that the complaints system needs fundamental changes and welcome the home secretary’s recent package of reforms to build confidence in the police and the systems that hold them to account – we are working closely with the Home Office on the latest review.

“We refute any claims of a toxic culture and have a strong commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion with zero tolerance of discrimination.

“Since our new director general was appointed, we have started a radical transformation programme, and the culture of the organisation will be reviewed as part of this.”

‘True North: A Story of Racism, Resilience & Resisting Systems of Denial’ by Sal Naseem is available through Amazon.