Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has said that he has put Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick “on notice” after instances of "disgraceful" conduct were uncovered within the force.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct [IPOC] published a report on Tuesday this week, containing details of bullying and misogynist, discriminative and sexually inappropriate conduct from serving officers. Some of those involved joked about committing rape, domestic abuse and murder.
The revelations prompted the mayor to put Dame Cressida on notice, while he also demanded her to produce an “urgent plan” to address the issue.
Khan later told the BBC: “I'm heartbroken that more than a dozen officers can behave in this way.
“I'm not someone who is easily angered or disgusted. I am both when it comes to what I've seen over the last couple of days.
“I've been quite clear to the Met Police commissioner that she needs to come up with an effective plan urgently on how she addresses the clear examples of racist, sexist, misogynistic, discriminatory practices taking place, not by one or two officers, but by more than a dozen.”
A spokesperson for the mayor said that he had held talks with Dame Cressida for “well over 90 minutes”, during which he “made clear how angry he is with a return to the bad days of the Met of his childhood in the 1970s and 80s, and that neither he nor Londoners will put up with this.”
The spokesperson added: “He [the mayor] has put the commissioner on notice. He said the Met needs to urgently show it has an effective plan for restoring the trust and confidence of Londoners in the police.”
The Metropolitan Police force did not comment on the discussions between the mayor and the commissioner but said that it was “deeply sorry” for the findings of the IOPC’s probe.
Elsewhere, home secretary Priti Patel said that she was "appalled and sickened" by the report's findings, and accused the Met Police force of being blighted by "cultural and attitudinal" issues and a "failure of leadership in some quarters".
However, speaking before the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, the home secretary said that she trusted the commissioner to make the changes required to resolve the issues around police conduct.
Photo by King's Church International on Unsplash
