The convictions of Wayne Couzens in 2021 and David Carrick in 2023, both serving Metropolitan Police officers, clearly had a significant impact on the organisation. Sir Mark Rowley who has been commissioner since 2022 was quoted by the BBC as complaining that he did not have the power to ‘sack hundreds of people who shouldn’t be in the job’. This seems a remarkable thing to say even in the wake of two extreme cases which must have caused the service huge embarrassment. How does one arrive at such a figure and what does it do for the confidence of officers in the service, when there seems to be little distinction between the headline cases and more mundane disciplinary matters?
The Director General of the Independent Office for Police Conduct has warned against making chief officers ‘judge and jury’. For the commissioner to make such a statement hardly counts as effective leadership, since no consideration seems to have been given to the impact of such words on the rank and file of the organisation. Additionally, his words are likely to be a significant influence on those further down the management chain. Some of the results as we shall see suggest the Metropolitan Police disciplinary process is leaning in the direction of Soviet style socialist legality, where political considerations rather than guilt or innocence should guide the application of punishment.
In finest show trial terminology Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy has come up with a quota approach to the job and says they are to deal with disciplinary cases at the rate of thirty a month and added that this requires an ‘ambitious plan’. In the Soviet Union they were fond of five-year plans but the Met’s senior management is looking at a three-year timescale to remove what the media has lazily chosen to describe as ‘corrupt officers’. It makes one wonder if any political scrutiny is taking place. Back in September 2023 the BBC reported that more than 1000 officers were suspended or on restricted duties. This is an incredible total in an organisation which employs 30,000 officers. It tells one much about the culture, suggesting perhaps that middle managers have decided the safest approach is to abdicate from a leadership role and the exercise of discretion, by sending cases down the disciplinary route.
No-one would dispute that a police officer charged with a criminal offence needs to be off the streets. Equally an officer who has failed a drugs test or acted unprofessionally should be disciplined. However, amidst the raft of recent disciplinary cases are some that in a healthier organisation with more confident leadership might have been dealt with informally. This is particularly so when the incident which has led to a disciplinary charge occurred ‘in house’ rather than during an interface with the public.
Others call into question the fairness of the procedure when there is what might be termed a racial element to the charge. It should be appreciated that every officer dismissed represents a considerable investment by the taxpayer in recruitment and training. Plus of course there may be years of experience, accumulated out on the streets of London, which is subsequently lost.
Clearly the service is into openness. There is a website which will tell you all about how the Met runs its disciplinary procedures. It’s possible for members of the public to apply for permission to attend a hearing. It’s also possible to attend a Crown Court trial but they don’t advertise. Most public bodies have disciplinary processes and whilst these aren’t held in camera, they don’t go out of their way to provide access to the general public. Being proactive about this, under the banner of openness, suggests senior management favour a show trial approach.
A well-publicised example of the disciplinary process at work was covered in a report by the Independent on October 4th 2024. Back in 2020 the athlete Bianca Williams and her partner were stopped by the police as they drove home. Afterwards they complained that the stop and search had been as a result of racial profiling. The officers alleged that they could smell cannabis but the subsequent disciplinary hearing concluded that they had lied. It failed to consider what another officer had said; that he too could smell cannabis. The officers appealed against the finding and their subsequent dismissal. The appeals tribunal recommended their reinstatement concluding that the panel’s decision was ‘irrational and inconsistent’. It described the appellants as ‘hard working and much respected officers’ whose reputations had been ‘ruined’. The chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation wondered why it had ever got to this point.
Following on from the case we have an example of what may happen to a critic who voices concern. Again, in October 2024 the Times reported that Rick Prior chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, was suspended after giving an interview claiming ‘vexatious’ investigations meant officers hesitated to deal with ethnic minorities. Prior has been suspended from his position and placed under investigation by the National Police Federation. In an interview with GB News he had said, ‘there’s a striking crisis in confidence within policing in general and certainly within the Metropolitan Police, whereby officers are withdrawing from any kind of proactive policing for fear of falling foul of a vexatious or malicious complaint. There seems to be an assumption of racism, right from the off, particularly when it’s a white police officer….’
On a lighter note, but still providing a flavour of how ludicrous the disciplinary process can be, there is the case of former Detective Sergeant Mel Chinn. The judgement ran to 83 paragraphs and might be summarised as the ‘Dog Poo Case’. The story was widely reported in the press; former DS Chinn became involved in a boundary dispute with her neighbours. This led to allegations of water being sprayed and subsequently the escape of dog faeces and urine onto the neighbour’s property. The complainants seem to have been meticulous in the recording of incidents and chose to report the matter to her employer. Of course, the situation did (somewhat remotely) have the potential to reflect badly on the police. Perhaps a more mature response might have been to warn the officer where the matter could lead and to advise the complainant to consider an action for nuisance should it continue.
We do not know why DS Chinn decided to resign. However, she found herself facing a charge of gross misconduct. Most organisations might have concluded that since she was no longer an employee the matter might be closed. However, it doesn’t work like that in the Met. In such cases they take their cue from the Vatican and the Cadaver Synod in which the deceased Pope Formosus was put on trial. The no longer available Sergeant Chinn was found to be guilty of gross misconduct, an outcome reported in the press, who also concluded that she had been responsible for the acts complained of.
The Met also seems obsessed with minor sexual misdemeanours. For example, in September 2021 PC Jason Brooks groped another officer in a pub. For this he was dismissed for gross misconduct. Another disciplinary case in that month involved PC Morgan Griffiths who had used anti-Semitic and racist language to a colleague. There was a finding of gross misconduct and PC Griffiths was dismissed. The presiding officer recorded one of his reasons as being that Griffiths’ behaviour was ‘damaging our relationship with communities’. It needn’t have done of course. The Met’s decision to use the disciplinary process ensured the case was reported in the press. Line managers appear reluctant to use their judgement and deal with such matters at a much lower level.
Not even third-party scrutiny is enough to deter the Met in its zeal to root out the gropers. PC Brooking touched a colleague in a sexual manner on a night out. The matter was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service which decided not to proceed. Undeterred the Met ordered a disciplinary hearing and in January 2022 he was dismissed for gross misconduct.
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Met’s senior management that the publicity surrounding trivial cases is counter productive; the media having concluded that the ‘ambitious plan’ is a rich source of material for stories. The case against PC Mohammed Tarig illustrates this. He was charged with using a vehicle with his mother’s disabled Blue Badge, to avoid congestion charges. Despite Transport for London refusing to support action against the officer, the Met went ahead. This prompted a flurry of headlines which may have caused the Met some further reputational damage. Additionally, the National Blue Badge people became over excited and posted a statement on their website saying, ‘the Met police’s response to this case will be crucial in setting a precedent for how Blue Badge misuse is handled moving forward’. Incidentally the case against PC Tarig was found ‘not proven’.
This deluge of disciplinary cases may be having unintended consequences. For example, there is the amount of negative media coverage, often out of all proportion to the actual disciplinary offence. Certainly, it doesn’t suggest that the Met is a good place to work, particularly since it is fond of the overused word ‘toxic’ when referring indirectly to its workforce. Naturally they have ‘vision and values principles’. These could belong to any organisation that interfaces with the public. Nowhere does it mention fighting crime.