Met Police Chief admits he ‘can see why women don’t trust police’

Met Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley has told the BBC that he ‘can see why women don’t trust the police’. His interview comes as we mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of Sarah Everard, murdered in 2021 by a serving police officer in the Met. Referring to ‘several ghastly cases of police officers committing awful offences against women’, Rowley agrees they were undoubtedly intrinsic in the flailing public trust in the Metropolitan Police.

Women and girls face increasing levels of sexual abuse driven by the entitlement, misogyny, and harmful attitudes held by too many men in Western societies. That trauma often damages their ability to feel safe or to trust others.

However, Rowley actually appears to minimise the scale and diversity of abuse that women experience. After all, for marginalised women that threat can be even greater. Black and brown women not only endure sexual violence but also face racist abuse that compounds and deepens the trauma they must navigate in their daily lives. We also have our LGBTQ+ community who we must also not forget in this critical issue.

All women matter, not just white women

In March 2021, Met police officer Wayne Couzens identified himself to Sarah Everard before making a false arrest. He then proceeded to kidnap, rape and murder Everard, even using police handcuffs to make her submissive. He had also been found to have indecently exposed himself on two recorded incidents.

Since her murder, officials have conducted reports and inquiries into the institution. Campaigners have also made widespread calls for reform to address the terrifying risks women face when interacting with police officers.  Nevertheless, it hasn’t escaped our attention that Sir Rowley’s interview today makes no mention or reference to the other institutional issues that we know are rife within the UK’s biggest police force.

After all, we mustn’t forget the report in 2023 conducted after Everard’s murder at the hands of a Met police officer, which found the force are institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. Given how these behaviours often interplay for abusers, Rowley’s lack of acknowledgement suggests they have learned little respect for the experience of women.

Our own Alex/Rose Cocker wrote in October about racist and misogynistic attitudes in the Met, after a BBC Panorama revealed an apparently ‘hidden culture’. As Cocker astutely pointed out, there is nothing ‘hidden’ about it:

Rory Bibb, the Panorama reporter, spent seven months in the custody suite of Charing Cross police station as a designated detention officer. In that time, Bibb recorded a vast array of truly heinous and discriminatory remarks and actions from the officers around him. His sterling work resulted in the suspensions of eight bigot cops and one other staff member.

adding:

The Met’s bigotry has only been driven underground if you have the luxury of never having to deal with an officer whilst you yourself are marginalised in any way. Its discrimination can only be considered hidden if we automatically discount the Met’s victims as credible witnesses.

‘The Met Police’s problems extend beyond a systemic hatred of women’

Joe Glenton wrote for the Canary later that month about a Met police officer who avoided a custodial sentence despite spying on a 14-year-old girl. Instead, his conviction of voyeurism and making indecent images of a child was given a suspended sentence of 13 months. He wrote:

The Met’s problem’s extend beyond a systemic hatred of women. On 2 October a BBC Panorama documentary showed how racism and far-right ideas thrived in the force.

The BBC reported:

The evidence of misogyny and racism challenges the Met’s promise to have tackled what it calls “toxic behaviours” after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer.

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Panorama’s secret filming shows officers making sexualised comments to colleagues and sharing racist views about immigrants and Muslims.

What sort of deterrent is this when pretty much every abuser wants to believe they won’t get found out? The lack of a serious sentence when he was in a position of trust in his community speaks to a woeful underappreciation by the Met for the long-term harm these abuses inflict on those victimised.

Met Police — little sign of change or progress for women

Former victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird added her voice this morning. She argued on Sky News that women’s safety and confidence haven’t improved much at all since Everard’s horrifying murder. Alarmingly, she also pointed out that applicants to the Met with a caution on their record seem to be perfectly acceptable:

The Angiolini inquiry referenced by Baird was released in December last year, and highlighted ‘massive and continuing failures’ in the Met’s handling of violence against women and girls (VAWG). We wrote at the time:

Racism and misogyny shouldn’t be conflated here. However, last month’s report illustrates the ways in which the police can work directly counter to efforts at reform, both within and without their organisation. The solution to VAWG cannot, and must not, be built around the expectation that the police can resolve this issue.

Time and again, we have seen that the police are part of the problem.

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I mean, it’s hard to argue against an independent third party stepping in to fix this serious issue within the force. Especially when they were clearly more than happy to ignore Prince Andrew’s abuse:

Deal with the root issue, not just the inevitable abuse

If the Epstein Files teach us anything, it is that sexual abuse often follows where powerful men go. Therefore, it isn’t a stretch to imagine that men attracted to the Met are doing so because they want to feel powerful. That is why it is essential that the scrutiny they receive is far reaching and cannot ignore cautions or any indication that abuse is possible as Dame Vera Baird underscored.

The harm that men have the potential to inflict is far reaching and life-changing for victims and survivors. The greater good and preventing that harm should always be the priority but evidently hasn’t been for far too long.

That might lead to a recruitment issue as there aren’t the number of suitable applicants. On the other hand, it might finally prompt the long overdue national conversation about harmful male attitudes in the UK.

Featured image via MyNewsDesk