The last few years have done little to give women in London confidence in the Met police. We watched as they dismissed our fears when they mishandled a planned vigil for Sarah Everard, when we were already terrified after it emerged she was kidnapped, raped and murdered by serving officer Wayne Couzens. Then we heard promise after seemingly empty promise about measures to make things safer for women without, it appears, much change. And then came the jailing of David Carrick, the police officer who was unmasked as one of Britain's most prolific sex offenders.
And now a shocking report into the culture at the Met has laid bare the true depth of failings in the force. The Casey report, named after Baroness Casey, who spent 14 months reviewing the Met following Sarah’s murder, highlights institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia. Her review found the Met may have more officers like Couzens and Carrick, needs a ‘complete overhaul’ and may need to be broken up.
'Female officers and staff routinely face sexism and misogyny,' states the report. 'The Met has not protected its female employees or members of the public from police perpetrators of domestic abuse, nor those who abuse their position for sexual purposes. Despite the Met saying violence against women and girls is a priority, it has been treated differently from ‘serious violence’. In practice, this has meant it has not been taken as seriously in terms of resourcing and prioritisation.'
Here are some the most shocking instances of misogyny which make clear just how much work there still is to be done..
1. Rape samples weren't looked after
The report found the sexual offences unit use broken fridges and freezers to store rape kits. A lunchbox was found in the same fridge as rape samples which, The Times reports, would have contaminated the evidence. It also found fridges were so crammed with evidence that three people were needed to push doors shut and evidence, such as swabs, blood samples and underwear, had to be destroyed, leading to alleged rape cases being dropped after a fridge broke down during the 2022 heatwave.
2. Officers in sexual offence units are under huge pressure
Officers on sexual offence units are handling so many cases at a time they suffer worse burnout rates than frontline medical staff did during the pandemic.
3. There’s a rampant sexist culture
A photoshopped poster of a female firearms officer carrying mops, irons and kettles instead of firearms was put up in the common area of MO19, the firearms command. Sexism was clearly evident when Casey’s review team visited. They witnessed women being dismissed and talked over. A third of Met women surveyed reported personally experiencing sexism at work, including one woman who was sexually assaulted on multiple occasions by a senior officer, who also said that he masturbated in front of her in the communal changing room.
4. A woman was forced to eat a whole cheesecake in an initiation
The review found junior members of staff were humiliated during initiations, which saw one woman being forced to eat a whole cheesecake in a food challenge.
5. Officers were told to ‘protect yourselves’ by deleting WhatsApps
A campaign called ‘Not in my Met’ was launched after Sarah Everard’s murder to try and identify and weed out toxic officers by encouraging whistleblowers to raise the alarm on rogue colleagues. But the report found officers were told to ‘look carefully’ at their WhatsApps and Facebook messages and that ‘they're coming for everyone now, protect yourselves’.