Police chiefs admit failures on diversity 21 years after the Lawrence report. African Caribbean officers increased by just 0.2% in 21 yrs. Black public confidence in policing is at its lowest level ever at 30% in Lambeth and never rises above 50% in London

This is simply a catastrophic failure by Metropolitan Police Service in particular in a city like London that is 40% BAME at the last census and is probably closer to 50% BAME today.

Whilst in the Mayors Office 2000 -2008 through positive action measures we increased BAME recruitment by 100% and what this demonstrates is that with political will and the right approach to community relations real progress can be made.

Unfortunately, from 2008 onwards the police under Boris Johnson and later the Mayor of London, and as a direct result of a failure to keep the political pressure on the force to reform, the police snapped back to their cultural default setting of institutional racism and things deteriorated significantly over the last 12 years, as a result.

Millions have been spent on diversity training and recruitment to achieve this derisory outcome. Critics of the police, like me have been condemned as 'anti-police' for our criticism of their failure to reduce disproportionality, improve community relations, and root out police racism. These figures prove that we were right.

There is no escaping the fact that the reputation of the police is so bad, so toxic as to deter the majority of African and Caribbean peoples from joining their ranks,

Add to that the appalling treatment of black officers in the job and no amount of diversity flim-flam can disguise the fact that this is an almighty and catastrophic political and professional failure.