The police gun lasers beams were dancing around my 12 year old sons head and chest.

This is a nightmare no parent would want to face. 

Her home was raided by a SWAT team all because of a toy gun. Hear firsthand in this exclusive in-depth interview the horrific trauma suffered by Mina Agyepong, her 12-year-old son Kai and her two daughters as they were held at gunpoint by Metropolitan Police Service

Unbelievably, and despite all that she and her family have been through, she has received no formal apology from the Met. 

We also ask why @Unilever is brutally exploiting Kenyan tea plantation workers and farmers and has monuments depicting enslaved Africans outside its London HQ? 

#LeeJasperDriveTime #BlackLivesMatter

Lambeth Metropolitan Police officers raid the home of murdered teenager, Louis Johnson.

 

Louis Johnson was just 16 years of age, and tragically was the victim of a brutal murder, a knife attack that took place at East Croydon station on 27th January 202 as he made his way back to his family home. 

 

Needless to say that this cruel and savage attack on this young teenager left his family, mother, sister, elder and younger brother utterly devastated. 

 

The background of his tragic death is illustrative of the failure of local authorities to implement safeguarding and risk assessment measures for homeless families. 

 

Louis and his family were living in temporary accommodation provided by the council and were, unbelievably moved a total of nine times in five years across several London boroughs. The family found themselves living in a variety of different postcodes and having to change school continually, Louis faced threats of gang violence, both within schools and his local neighbourhood.

 

What this case reveals is that there are considerable implications concerning safeguarding issues and risk assessments for families being moved by local authorities from one postcode to another and issue we intend to take up. 

 

Louis was making his way home that fateful January afternoon waiting for a train at East Croydon station when another youth fatally stabbed him. He died at the scene at 4.45 p.m. despite receiving urgent medical attention. 

 

His family received a call from Croydon Council's, social work team telling them that their son had "been injured" at around 6 p.m. that day. The social worker informed the family that they had no more information other than Lewis was wounded and that they should ring around London hospitals.

 

The family in total and utter confusion, shock and disbelief hurriedly rang as many hospitals as possible but could not locate Louis. 

 

The British Transport Police (BTP) who were investigating the case updated their Twitter account at 8 p.m. and yet they still had not formally contacted the family, to inform them of Louis's death. 

 

Some agonising four hours later, the BTP arrived at the family home to tell his mother and brothers that Louis had been murdered. Unbelievably, the British Transport Police had failed to inform the family before they announced his death to the world. 

 

The consequence of that was the family were left speculating whether the unidentified person cited on the BTP Twitter account as having died at East Croydon station, was, in fact, their beloved son and brother Louis.

 

One can only imagine the sickening terror that gripped the family as they frantically rang hospitals and waited for someone to tell them what was happening.

 

The British Transport Police apologised profusely to the family telling them they "had dropped the ball" by failing to inform his family immediately. A chilling understatement of a catastrophic error in communications and one utterly exacerbated on what was the worst day of this family's life.

 

On 5th March, Mom attended Charing Cross Police Station to collect her deceased son's belongings and provided the Police with a copy of his death certificate.

 

But this wasn't the end of this family's tragic ordeal.

 

On 19th March 2020 and 8:30 a.m. while the family were asleep at their home, five Lambeth based, Metropolitan Police officers smashed their way into their property, screaming "it's the police" detaining all in the house and kicking off the bedroom door of Louis's 15-year-old brother.

 

Mom, who is disabled with a chronic illness, could hear her younger son shouting, panicked she rushed from her bedroom to find out what was going on. 

 

She found her way barred by a police officer. Louis eldest brother, who was sleeping downstairs, also heard the screams of his little brother but could do nothing. 

 

The youngest brother was bundled, manhandled and cuffed by police officers, and it was only then the officers told the family, they were looking for Louis. His younger brother had been managing his grief by wearing his deceased brothers' old football shirt, and one can only assume the Police wrongly thought the younger brother was Louis.

 

How did this happen? Louis was arrested in 2019 for riding a stolen moped and had been placed on bail. Mom provided the Met with a copy of his death certificate shortly after his death. However, this information was not passed onto Lambeth. 

 

So a family still grieving their loss had their world shattered as Police officers stormed their family home. The response of the officers to being told that Louis was dead was to retort, "Yeah, we've heard that one before."

 

It was after Mom produced a death certificate that the officers shocked began to calm down and retreat, offering apologies and condolences.

 

The family were left traumatised by the event that was all over in 20 minutes flat. 

 

The Police left them shaking, crying in both fear and disbelief as they left the family home. The Police issued no paperwork, and no one contacted the family to explain. Mom had to reach out to the lead investigation officer handling Louis's murder, BTP officer Sam Blackwood to find out why they had been raided.

 

That day the family received calls from Lambeth Borough Commander Wingrove who wanted to come and personally offer apologies to the family.

 

The family, still in shock and seething with anger declined the offer of a visit because they believed any such apology would be insincere and lack any real conviction.

 

The following days and weeks saw the family's trauma deepened as they sought to come to terms with what had happened to them. Such was the level of fear and anxiety every time the doorbell rang, or a car pulled up at their home they'd panic revisiting the trauma of the raid.

 

Mum's illness aggravated by the stress of this incident became much worse. Her two sons were left deeply traumatised by this whole event. 

 

The entire family now needs on-going therapeutic support and attempt to make sense of what has happened to them. 

 

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, requested if she could personally apologise to the family. Given these tragic circumstances, the family's grief and shock as a result of these horrific events, there were in no mood for a police whitewash and synthetic apology.

 

While the Police have apologised and rightly so, that's not enough on this occasion. Police apologies are viewed by many in our communities as both routine and mostly insincere. 

 

Ethics dictate that they should pay for the counselling the family requires and offer financial compensation for the stress and damage caused. Also, the bodycam footage of the officers involved should be released to the public.

 

We intervened, in this case, putting pressure on the authorities to resolve their housing situation and we're glad to report the family have now been offered and accepted a new home. 

 

The matter was also looked at by the Independent Office of Public Complaints, (IOPC) who referred back to the Metropolitan Police Service to investigate themselves. 

 

We believe this to be a wholly inadequate response and call upon the IOPC to undertake an independent investigation and ensure community oversight through establishing an independent community reference group.

 

With Police community relations in London at crisis point, this case will further damage severely strained community tensions. With film footage of aggressive, and wholly disproportionate stop and search incidents appearing daily, set against the backdrop of a 45% increase in the use of the power since March, things are agitated on the streets. 

 

Against the backdrop of the tragic murder of George Floyd in the U.S and the massive Black Lives Matter demonstrations in London, it is safe to say the Met no longer enjoy the mandate of policing with consent regarding the African and Caribbean communities of London.

And in addition Harinegy, Police recently tasered a black boy climbing a wall who the fell and broke his back. The local community is seething with anger as a result. 

 

The Mayor and the MPS have been intensely lobbied and advised by several key community individuals of theses rising tension across the capital. As a former Deputy Mayor of London, my view is that we are one incident away from a significant backlash. Disproportionate use of Covid19 powers and the massive rise in the use of stop and search, use of section 60 stops and have gravely exacerbated community tension, and people are angry.

 

African and Caribbean communities, according to the Mets own public confidence survey has recorded the lowest level of expressed public confidence since records began. 

 

The Mayor alongside local authorities like Lambeth, (the borough that has the lowest level of community confidence in the Met of all the African and Caribbean communities in London) Haringey, Hackney, Southwark, Brent, Croydon, Lewisham and Newham must now engage with local communities in co-producing a new framework for police accountability and improving community confidence. 

 

Failure to do so would constitute a catastrophic failure of leadership that will come at an enormous cost to the capital. 

 

A new police-community compact based on agreed community demands should be developed, setting out a new way forward. Any unilaterally top-down imposed political strategies/solutions will ultimately fail. 

 

It is in the detail of how the Met and IOPC respond to incidents such as Louis Johnson family, and the many other events now recorded on film that will set the tone for what happens next. Let us hope good sense prevails. 

 

London's immediate fate as we head towards the summer now fate hangs in the balance. 

 

Its going to be a long hot summer.

Dear Mayor of London, 

27th July 2016. 

This is an open letter to you. I'm not sure you'll even see or even read it, but it's a genuine attempt to avoid the continuing deterioration of Met Police/Black community relationships over this summer. 

In my experience in dealing with thousands off demonstrations over the last 30 years, I find the police, when faced with an information vacuum, have a tendency to let their worst fears haunt them, and as a result, can adopt aggressive policing tactics. I've seen the wrong tactical options and decisions, chosen by inexperienced, sometimes racist, senior Police officers cause mayhem on more than one occasion. 

As you may know, I've been Head Steward for some of the largest and most militant demo's in the UK and again in my opinion, and backed up with formal confidence surveys, the level of distrust between the Metropolitan Police Service and black youth has now become almost endemic. Public trust and satisfaction surveys show a year on year decline in the extent to which black people have trust and confidence in the Met. 

Currently, those figures in the major London boroughs of Brent, Lambeth, Hackney, Newham, Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Greenwich, Croydon, Southall, Westminster RBKC are London's most multicultural boroughs are the lowest on record. Ask them if you don't believe me. 

Now, I know that the Met Commissioner, you Mayor of London and your Deputy Mayor for Policing Sophie Linden are all concerned and an emergency meeting has been conveyed. 

The Met believes, as a result of their lack of community engagement and the race prejudice, that the Black Lives Matter Movement US has become ' terrorist' in nature as a direct result of the recent shootings of police officers. 

Of course, they're wrong, but sharing intelligence with the Pentagon has reinforced their view that Black Lives Matter UK, or elements within its ranks or close to it are planning major attacks on police. The recent Hyde Park fiasco reinforced that view. It appears when they saw the size of the crowd, they overreacted and they had no-one on the ground to talk to, nor did they have anyone they could call. 

In the ensuing panic, chaos broke out and fight broke out where two youths were unfortunately stabbed. 

As a result, all Met Police leave has been cancelled and they are in danger of allowing their uninformed fears dictate their operational tactics. 

Good advice is in short supply and as a result of their decision to dismantle the McPherson Inquiry policy and monitoring forums, they are now operating in an information vacuum. As a result, they are making huge contingency plans for serious disorder focussing on the events below. 

Reparations March, Mark Duggan March, and Notting Hill Carnival. 

The other day the Daily Mail, ran an article from out of nowhere, citing me as an 'anti-police rabble rouser' citing my critique of policing tactics at Hyde Park and my comment that its look like a ' long hot the summer'

I was referring to the fact that if the wrong policing tactics, aggressive rude, violent policing predominates, then this summer will be long. In the context of the on going racially profiling and criminalisation of black youth, you can not expect black young people to face racist policing Mon to Friday and make exceptions for Sat and Sunday. 

Upping the ante at these demonstrations is a classic Police mistake that results from the Met refusing to engage with hard core activists with credibility, on the ground in their communities and instead surrounding themselves with complaint black people with little to no experience of demonstrations or the history of tactical policing options used over the years. 

The Mayor seems to have no one of credibility giving him this advice so here it is for free. 

I would advise that you too stand down the TSG and abandon the offensive policing tactics currently being put into place at New Scotland Yard. I would advise that ensure that you are personally engaged with this issue and that any move by the Met to move towards offensive policing is authorised buy you after proper consolation. 

I would convene a number of black credible representatives (not me I know I am persona non grata ) who can be called upon at these events, to respond to any escalation of tensions or critical incidents. I would insist that these people are deployed to assist and inform your community liaison on the ground at each of these events. 

I would avoid having those with out expertise, credibility and community authority, they cant help you. These are fig leaves for Met Police indiscretions, for which they are usually paid very well. Choose wisely on this. 

Given the global rising tensions around police/black communities in the US, the targeting of EU capitals for terror-related attacks, the general, historic. but now acute distrust of London's black communities in the Met, alongside the perceptible rise in racism and hate crime in the UK and the recent death in police custody of Mzee Mohammad, my strong advice Mr. Mayor is avoid taking as sacrosanct alone. the operational advice and intelligence offered by the Met.

I say you should triangulate the information. 

Under the current Met Police Commissioner, the institution has abandoned its commitment to race equality and declared itself a 'post racist institution' in July 2009. 

As a result of this catastrophic error the Met has now lost both its corporate memory, best practices and as a consequence of age, some of its most experienced senior officers. 

The other worrying fact Mr Mayor, is that we have the lowest number of experienced 'street craft' officers and the highest number of probationer officers than at any other time in Met history. You may recall that Lord Scarman quoted the information vacuum and the high number of Probationers Constables on the streets unaccompanied by experienced officers as key reasons why Brixton 86 occurred. 

The Met, left to their own devices, will always police according to their fears. That's the danger, compounded by the failure to maintain effective communication with black communities and its most ardent critics. 

This, in addition to a retreat from local real police accountability and the ethos of policing by consent, set against the closure of the borough based Consultative Groups, has all resulted in a total breakdown in communication. which is why local Police Consultative Groups were initially recommended by Lord Scarman after the 1986 Brixton uprisings . 

Your predecessor Boris abolished them, largely I suspect because of people like me, consistency challenging and holding senior officers feet to the fire. 

I once predicted disturbances in January 2011 after the death n police custody of Smiley Culture. I was ignored, ridiculed and summarily dismissed by your predecessor, Boris Johnson and in August 2011 the country exploded after the police shooting of Mark Duggan. 

Boris was on his summer holidays in the Algarve at the time. I did a Sky TV interview on the evening of the protest amid the anarchy and demanded to know where the Mayor was while London was burning. 

He was forced to return to London immediately. 

Take note and enjoy your summer holidays Mr.Mayor 

Mayor. 

Warm regards 

Lee.

Police Brutality 2015 Notting Hill Carnival

Police brutality at the 2015 Notting Hill Carnival. Watch as a brother is punched and pummelled by the Metropolitan Police for no reason. The brother is under control and there is no threat to the officers. 

He is punched repeatedly whilst on the ground, then as he is being led away on handcuffs, he is punched again for no reason. This is the type of behaviour that results in communities having little or no trust or confidence in police.

I would certainly offer our support to this young man if you or any of your friends know him then please pass my contact details. 

I think we should all be demanding this be properly investigated at a public investigation and the officers be immediately suspended pending investigations. 

I wonder if any of the officer involved or who saw what happened reported and complained about the disgusting behaviour of  their fellow officers?  I doubt it. Then that leaves us to support this brother who no doubt will be falsely charged with police assault. 

I think its time when marched to New Scotland Yard and demanded answers. Whose with me ? 

Police Operation SWAMP 81 Returns To Brixton This Thursday

No to Operation SWAMP Brixton 2014. (Now cancelled!) 

Saturation Policing Aggravates Police/Community Relations

This Thursday 6th March 2014 will see the return of the discredited policing tactic Operation SWAMP to central Brixton. The discredited policing tactic that saw hundreds of officers literally swamp local communities triggered the civil rights uprising of 1981.

Now refreshed and re-branded as a Lambeth Council led initiative and beautifully named  Brixton Unites, the tactic sees its return under the broad banner of the Met Commissioners Total Policing initiative.

Given the total breakdown of relationships between the Metropolitan Police and the local Black community, the local council has been persuaded to take the lead in an attempt to soften the impact on what will be a extremely aggressive enforcement activity whose stated aim is 'to make Brixton feel safer'.

What is planned is unprecedented in the local area in terms of its scale and the fact that no consultation has taken. No surprise there given the mayor of London and Met Commissioners appalling record on community engagement.

The SWAMP Brixton day will begin with Trident Anti Gang Unit raids starting around 6am and last until the early evening.

In addition there will be drug enforcement units using sniffer drugs in the center of Brixton, parking enforcement will be ruthlessly enforced and Traffic police cars will be stopped and checked for tax and insurance, British Transport Police will check tickets at the Tube and use drugs dogs in the station. Immigration officers from UKBA will be targeting suspected illegal immigrants and Council Officers will hit all the shops with health and safety inspections, rough sleepers will be moved on and street drinkers arrested.

There will be a huge search for weapons. Abandoned vehicles will be towed away and the Truancy team will be targeting children throughout the day. All this will be filmed by the BBC as part of a documentary on the MPS.


What is remarkable is virtually no consultation has taken place with local communities about this massive enforcement operation taking place in two days time.  Neither the Council nor the Police have seen fit to consult in any meaningful manner beyond their usual group of compliant pro police partners.




Given that tensions are running high in the aftermath of the Mark Duggan verdict this operation feels both oppressive and disproportionate. It is beyond belief that no one thought it necessary to consult with the community about this Total Policing operation designed to send a clear political message form the Met "We control the streets" and Council seeking to luck tough on crime in the run up to local elections in May.

This operation must not be allowed to go ahead if the important principle of policing b consent is to mean anything at all. At the last public meeting recently organised by the Mayor Office for Policing and Crime in Lambeth resulted in the Met the sheer anger at the Met and the Mayor was palpable.


It is my view that this SWAMP operation is designed to send a clear message to local communities and that is the Police are a law unto themselves. The focus will be on the Coldharbpour Lane ward where we have seen an influx of new well organised middle class resident,  slumming it from Chelsea and demanding that police and Council take actions

I hear that new residents on Coldharbour Lane are already making noise complaints about established black business of many years standing who for years have played music outside their shops.As these new resident move in they demand the ambiance and policing that they enjoyed in areas such as Chelsea and Richmond.  This SWAMP policing operations also speaks to the politics of policing, post the Mark Duggan verdict, it has a focus on press public relations management, short term electoral gain,  reputation management and gentrification than it has to do with tackling crime.

If this goes ahead,  we need as many people out monitoring and  filming activity, providing rights on arrest cards, immigration advice, taking pictures and advising juveniles of their legal rights. I intend to be out there for the entire day and would encourage others to come and join me. I will be in Windrush Square Brixton from 1pm please join me.

No doubt this operation is more to do with the ongoing rapid gentrification of Brixton than it has to do with tackling crime.

We simply cannot allow these bully boy policing tactics to take place in Brixton, the Council and the police simply cannot be allowed to impose a style of policing upon our local community at the behest of another.

Community consultation cannot be simply dismissed as an unnecessary adjunct to tackling crime particularly in areas where relations with the police are strained. Lack of communication in such circumstances could potentially be catastrophic. We cannot have drug dogs, immigration deportation teams, traffic enforcement cops British Transport police parking officers and many others simply swamp a community where relations are so bad.

There is a meeting of Lambeth Police Consultative group taking place this evening Tuesday 4th March at 5.30 at the Karibu Education Center Gresham Road SW9 where I will be raising these and other issues. Please do come along and have your say.

No to Operation SWAMP Brixton 2014

Boris Johnson announces ‘review’ into Police racism. Lee Jasper slams ‘cosmetic’ response to institutional racism.

Mayor of London, Boris Johnson - pays only lip service to race issues.

Boris Johnson today announced a ‘review’ into racism in the Metropolitan Police Service in recognition that under his watch, racist is resurgent and out of control and as a consequence the relationship of the MPS and London black communities is the worst we have seen in years.

This ‘inquiry’ the details of which are as yet unknown will, it’s said, look at the implementation of the discredited ‘Race & Faith Report’ published and then subsequently ditched in August 2012. Published some 18 months late in the middle of the summer holidays, the report was instantly forgotten by all. The report was a joke and I wrote a damning article about this at the time.

The credibility of the report that focused entirely on the issues of recruitment, retention and promotion of black officers was deeply compromised. In essence this report was politically hijacked by Boris Johnson and the then Police Commissioner Kit Malthouse, both of whom were determined to ensure that the findings concluded that the “MPS was no longer institutionally racist”.

The then inquiry team one of whom resigned in protest heavily resisted that finding. The report itself did not reach any such conclusion, however the Mayor insisted that the following passage referring to ‘institutional racism’ was inserted into the report

“Now, however, as a consequence of rhetorical inflation, the term is used too glibly as a blanket indictment and as such has become a barrier to reform. Paradoxically the concept of institutional racism has become a millstone around the neck of the MPS, obscuring our understanding of the nature of any continuing endemic racism in that or any other large organisation.”

The Mayor made a serious error in seeking to dismiss the reality of ‘institutional racism’ and  that would cost London and the rest of the country dear, as within a year of the publication of the Race & Faith report London exploded in violence at the shooting by the MPS of Mark Duggan.

The Race & Faith report was a real missed opportunity. Ironically today, in his desperation to be seen to responding to huge concern about race and policing,  in a media driven reflex action he has now decided to conduct a review on the implementation of a series of recommendations that, at the time of publicising, he had no real intention of implementing.  A new ‘review’ that focuses on the discredited narrow employment focused recommendations of the Race & Faith report which demonstrates a deliberately confused knee jerk political response that fails to recognise the scale of the problem.

The truth here is that the Mayor pays nothing but lip service to tackling racism in the MPS. He sees these issues as just another opportunity to grab headlines and is forever in search of cosmetic solutions.

This problem was exemplified today as the ‘review’ was announced at the meetings of the GLA Police and Crime Committee. Both the Mayor and the Commissioner answered questions from London Assembly members. Today when asked questions about the review (that unsurprisingly was first announced in the press) Boris stated he thought the review had already started whilst the Commissioner claimed he did not know anything about it.

The acute political deficit and confusion at City Hall in understanding London’s multiculturalism and anti racism does not stop there. It extends up the Thames right up to New Scotland Yard. 

In February this year I challenged Commissioner Hogan Howe publically to accept that relations between London’s Black Community and the MPS was the worst it had been in 30 years.

I put it to the Commissioner that “The MPS has lost the confidence of black communities through massive year on year increases in stop and search and controversial deaths in police custody. How are you going to repair and restore confidence”?

Commissioner Hogan-Howe replied: “I disagree with almost everything you have said.”

Further the political co-option of Operation Trident originally set up specifically to tackle gun crime in black communities and bastardised into a London wide anti gang unit, clearly illustrates that in the eyes of the Mayor and the MPS Commissioner, London’s gang problem is in essence a black community problem. Trident is fatally compromised as a result.

The riots of August 2011 and the current deluge of racist incidents within the MPS and the reluctant acceptance of both the Mayor and now the Commissioner that there is a need for another  ‘review’ does not represent   a serious effort to get to the root of the problem of endemic institutional and cultural racism within the MPS.  The confusion around its launch today demonstrates the cynical politicking of the Mayor’s Office.

The Mayor over the last two years and the Commissioner of late have both refused to accept that there was a profound crisis of trust and confidence between London’s black communities and the MPS. They consistently denied there was a problem and when the August 2010 riots erupted they were spectacularly unprepared and did not have the political or professional capacity to respond, leaving London and the country twisting on the wind.

Once again I can forewarn them that playing politics with the issue of race and policing is a dangerous and deadly game. This summer will see tensions rise again as result of deaths in custody Inquest hearings that will dramatically increase tensions and the 2012 Olympics that will see aggressive increases in stop and search figures. That’s not including any catalyst events that will no doubt take place in addition to a black youth unemployment rate that is now 56%.

I believe, that in an effort to begin the process of restoring trust and confidence, the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee should organise public consultations as matter of urgency if we are to avoid further disturbances on the streets of London.

Boris Johnson now has sole power over the MPS, He can decide under the new powers given to him to initiate widespread and fundamental reforms of the MPS. He could use these powers to good effect.

The Mayor could establish a judicial public inquiry into suspicious deaths in custody. He has the power to do so under the GLA Act. He could agree to attend a round of public consultations organised by London’s black communities (GLA organised consultations are poorly attended and are stage managed) in an effort to identify the real reality of racism of policing.

He could establish a judicial inquiry into the potential police corruption of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry as demanded by Doreen Lawrence.

He could insist, as I did whilst in post, that all MPS recruitment over a period of three years focuses solely on advertising targeting black and ethnic minorities resulting in the biggest increase number of black police officers recruited ever seen in the history of the MPS.

He could demand that the MPS immediately settle all outstanding internal and external race complaints from serving officers and members of the public saving the taxpayer millions of pounds in legal fees and years of tortuous grief endured by public complainants.

He could insist that the MPS set out a draft race equality strategy for consultation. He could insist that all DNA of people not charged with a crime are removed form the police database.

He could insist that stop and search numbers come down just as he insisted in 2008 that they went up.

These are just a few things he has in his power to do. This ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ Mayor has a proved to be a disaster for race relations in London.

The recent Mayoral elections demonstrate that his stance on race is the very thing that is an attraction for some Londoners, who understand and agree with his ideological opposition to the principle of race equality.  For a city like London that is a catastrophic error borne of prejudice and ignorance and one that will cost the City dear.

Lee Jasper

Revelation calls MPS Commissioner’s commitment to rooting out discrimination into question - Lee Jasper exclusive

Bernard Hogan-Howe

MPS Commissioner’s commitment to rooting out discrimination called into question after reports that he reinstated ‘ racist’ officer.

The commitment of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service to tackling racism is being called into question, as sources within the MPS provided evidence that he had previously reinstated a police officer accused of racism.

There is already widespread disenchantment from Met police officers who are desperate to challenge the racism of their colleagues but who doubt the commitment of senior officers, including the Commissioner to take real action.

MPS Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe, while he was an Assistant Commissioner with the MPS, overturned a decision to sack a police traffic officer (who had been reported by a fellow officer) for racially abusing a black man whilst on traffic patrol in London.

It is said that having been overtaken by a black man with dreadlocks the officer forced the man to stop before delivering a volley of racist abuse. The man was not arrested or charged with any offence. A fellow officer in the police car at the time was so shocked by the severity of the abuse that he reported the incident to his senior officers

At a subsequent internal disciplinary hearing the officer was found guilty and it was recommended that he be sacked with immediate effect. The officer appealed against the decision and that appeal was then heard by the then Assistant Commissioner Bernard Hogan Howe. He overturned that decision citing the fact that although the officer had some 15 years in the job he had not had any ‘ race relations’ training.

With the Commissioner having responded to recent cases highlighting the racist behavior of his officers by setting out his total commitment to opposing racism, this case will call into question that commitment. Reported in the Guardian, the Commissioner made public his commitment to tackling racism within the police service.

He stated:

"I will not stand for any racism or racists."

Adding,

"We have a duty to challenge or report any behaviour by colleagues which is less than the high standard demanded by the service and Londoners themselves," he said. "You cannot avoid that duty. Nor can I."

That commitment must now be called into question as a result of what appears to be his personal decision to overturn the decision taken by fellow officers to sack the PC concerned.

Questions need to be asked about how many MPS officers found guilty of racism through the MPS disciplinary process have been subsequently reinstated?

Further there must be full disclosure of how many times similar decisions were personally taken by Commissioner Howe whilst employed at the MPS and as Chief Constable for Merseyside?

With the MPS in the grip of a ‘race crisis’ this new evidence will seriously call into question the Commissioner’s personal and professional commitment to tackle racism in the MPS.

With the trust and confidence of London communities rocked by recent revelations and a now growing crisis of confidence of officers within the Met the situation is becoming critical.

This is just one of a series of cases not yet in the public domain that will emerge over the coming weeks, that is bound to further damage the beleaguered reputation of the MPS with Londoners. 

Lee Jasper