A thousand London police officers have been suspended or reassigned in one year, announced Tuesday September 19 Scotland Yard, which launched a vast clean-up operation within its ranks after a series of scandals.
“It will take a year, two years or more to weed out the corrupt [police officers],” warned Stuart Cundy, a senior officer at the Metropolitan Police (London’s police force). In total, 201 agents have been suspended over the past year, and around 860 have been reassigned, the Met said.
“Add those two numbers together and you get over 1,000 police officers, almost the size of a small police force in other places in the country. That’s a significant number,” admitted Stuart Cundy.
The “Met”, which has 34,000 members, faces a serious crisis of confidence since the revelation of crimes committed by police officers.
Repeated scandals
In March 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old Londoner, was raped and killed by one Wayne Couzens, a police officer. This agent has since also been sentenced to life in prison. The police were then criticized for having ignored alarming signals about his behavior.
Following this case, the London police announced on Thursday September 14 that they would compensate two women arrested in 2021 during a vigil in tribute to the victim. At the time, the Reclaim These Streets (RTS) association had planned a vigil to honor the 33-year-old, whose murder shook the country, but the police banned it, citing anti- Covid.
As part of another scandal, police officer David Carrick was also sentenced to life in prison for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults. The police missed nine opportunities to arrest this serial rapist who was active for seventeen years while he was in law enforcement.
Accusations of violence against women
Beyond these high-profile cases, several reports have denounced racist, homophobic and misogynistic behavior within the police, and many voices are calling for reforms.
“Police failed to protect their female employees or members of the public from police officers who commit domestic violence, or from those who abuse their position for sexual purposes,” reads the 363-page report released in March 2023.
In addition, one hundred police officers were dismissed for serious misconduct in one year (or 66% more than in previous years), announced the “Met”, without detailing the errors committed. Finally, 275 are awaiting a hearing for serious misconduct, a significant proportion of which relate to accusations of violence against women (compared to 136 last year).
The number of reports, from the public and officers, of accusations of misconduct doubled during the same period.