Britain’s biggest police force has moved 90 officers from tackling serious crime and counter-terrorism to a unit tasked to root out corrupt colleagues.
Commissioner Mark Rowley made the announcement on Thursday as he revealed that a total of 161 Metropolitan (Met) Police officers have criminal convictions—76 for serious traffic offences including drink driving and careless driving.
Another 49 have convictions for crimes of dishonesty or violence—eight of whom committed the offences while they were police officers and remain serving with the force.
Other crimes include drug possession, criminal damage, and public order offences, and three serving officers have convictions for sexual offences, the commissioner said.
Almost 200 serving officers and staff have also been identified for further vetting or risk assessment after a wide-ranging internal review.
A further 689 cases will be subject to additional scrutiny to determine whether there are new or missed lines of inquiry that need to be pursued, the commissioner said.
The injection of 90 officers to the Directorate for Professional Standards (DPS) comes in the wake of a series of scandals that have hit the force, including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, and ex-constable David Carrick being unmasked as a serial abuser and rapist.
Sir Mark, who began the job in September, believes there are hundreds of corrupt officers serving in the force who should not be in the job.
In a letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, published on Wednesday, he said the work to clean up the Met was so urgent that officers had to be diverted from tackling serious and organised crime to the DPS.
“Not only have we increased our DPS by 150 people, but the scale and urgency of this work has meant diverting officers from other missions such as serious and organised crime and counter-terrorism,” he wrote.
“Over the last three months, we have had, on average, 90 additional officers and staff from these areas supporting DPS.
“The shared determination has been seen through the excess of volunteers.
‘Doubling Down’
Last month the force was branded institutionally racist, homophobic, and misogynist in a major review.Baroness Louise Casey—commissioned by the Met following the 2021 kidnap, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens—detailed disturbing stories of sexual assaults, usually covered up or downplayed, with 12 percent of women in the Met saying they had been harassed or attacked at work and one-third experiencing sexism.
The 363-page report warned that “public consent is broken” with just 50 percent of the public expressing confidence, even before revelations about the force’s worst recent scandals.
In a detailed press statement released alongside the letter to Braverman and Khan, Sir Mark revealed that calls to the Met’s dedicated internal hotline raising concerns about officers’ integrity and behaviour have more than doubled in the past six months.
The commissioner said the in-house flagging system was receiving around 14 reports a week, compared with an average of six previously.
A further 1,000 people have called the public-facing anti-corruption and abuse hotline since it was launched in partnership with Crimestoppers four months ago, leading to 325 reports that are now being taken forward, he said.
“I said we were serious about this and I meant it,” he said.
“This is the strongest doubling down on standards in the Met for 50 years.”
There have been 51 dismissals in the past six months, a 70 percent increase from the same period before, during which just 30 were dismissed.
There has also been a 95 percent increase of misconduct cases completed and now awaiting a gross misconduct hearing.
Operation Onyx
Operation (Op) Onyx was commissioned following the appalling case of ex-constable David Carrick, who raped and sexually assaulted 12 women over 17 years while serving as a Met officer.The case laid bare multiple failings in the way the force had dealt with reports about Carrick’s behaviour over many years and called into question the integrity of the handling of other similar reports.
Op Onyx involved a thorough review of all completed sexual offence or domestic abuse cases from the last 10 years involving serving officers or staff where the allegation did not result in a dismissal at the time.
As of the end of March, the Onyx team had identified that risk assessments or vetting reviews should be conducted into 196 officers and staff.
A further 689 cases will be subject to additional scrutiny to determine whether there are new or missed lines of inquiry that need to be pursued.
No further action will be taken in relation to 246 cases where it has been found that all appropriate actions were taken.
In an undisclosed number of cases, officers from the newly established Anti-Corruption and Abuse Command will assess whether covert activity or other investigative tactics may now be needed to determine if alleged perpetrators pose any ongoing risk.
Sir Mark said the review had revealed “far too many occasions” dating back over the last decade where the Met had not been “rigorous enough” in holding those within the force to account.
He added: “We cannot rush to judgments that risk doing a disservice either to the officers involved or to the victims and complainants.
Drink-Driving and Dishonesty Convictions
Last month, the Met became the first police service in the UK to adopt a new process to consider dismissing officers who can no longer pass vetting.Under Operation Assure, vetting reviews can now be triggered in a number of ways, including the conclusion of a criminal investigation, following a misconduct hearing where a written warning, final written warning, or a reduction in rank has been issued, or when adverse information about an individual comes to the notice of Professional Standards officers.
If an officer or staff member can no longer meet the minimal vetting requirement, they will be unable to fulfil the duties expected as part of their role, which may result in a finding of gross incompetence.
Such a finding could lead to dismissal, the commissioner said in the newly released update.
So far, 30 officers are being looked at as part of the operation and it is likely that number will increase to around 100 as the work progresses.
A number of these officers will be among the 196 identified as part of Op Onyx.
Thursday’s update also revealed how details of all serving officers have now been checked against the Police National Computer.
Those checks established that 161 officers have criminal convictions, around 0.5 percent of the workforce.
A majority of those convictions, 121, predate the officers joining the Met and 26 were obtained when the officers in question were under the age of 18. All those convictions identified were known to the Met, it said.
Sir Mark said that while he felt “reassured” that none of those convictions had been undisclosed, he had “concerns” around the suitability threshold.
He said: “Around half of the convictions were for traffic offences such as drink driving or careless driving.
“The remainder were for dishonesty, violence, or other offences such as public order, criminal damage, or drug possession.
“Each will have been considered on a case-by-case basis using national guidance, but I am concerned that guidance is too broad and allows too great a risk of unsuitable people joining the police.”
Sir Mark said he has now asked his team to “rapidly” consider whether there should be a deviation from national guidelines to impose a stricter set of rules for new Met officers.
He said this would mean a bar on those with convictions “beyond the most trivial matters, or crimes committed as a young person” from joining the force.
Intelligence Checks
The large-scale review to weed out rogue officers or staff has also seen checks on 50,000 people employed within the force.Those details are being checked against more than 5 billion intelligence records held on the Police National Database.
A dedicated team of officers is now processing the data to identify any areas of concern such as suspected involvement in criminality or undeclared associations with criminals, the commissioner revealed.
So far, 10,000 data matches have been assessed by the team, with 38 cases of potential misconduct and 55 possible criminal associations identified.
The work to process the remainder of the data is expected to be completed by the summer.
The commissioner’s update also revealed a 95 percent increase in the number of completed investigations and a 70 percent increase in the number of officers dismissed—84 and 51 respectively—in the past six months when compared with the previous period.
More cases are being considered on an accelerated basis—44 compared with 22 in the previous six months.
There has also been a 109 percent increase in the number of officers suspended in relation to new and historic investigations, with 144 officers currently suspended, up from 69 at the end of September 2022.
Sir Mark said while the latest figures “makes for uncomfortable reading,” the “open and honest” review was the only way to “regain the trust of Londoners.”
“We have been clear that this reform will take time but that the public will see steady progress,” he said.
“I hope this update gives a sense of the complexity of the work that is ongoing in many areas and why there is a need for patience to make sure we get it right.”
Sir Mark said he would be making public updates on the review on a quarterly basis.
Welcoming the update, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “The Met plays a unique role in keeping millions of Londoners safe and protecting the country from terrorism, so it is crucial the public has confidence in the force to carry out these duties with the utmost professionalism.
“I have been clear that a relentless focus on improving standards and common sense policing is required.”
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said the latest report sets out “disturbing findings.”
“Londoners, like me, will be appalled to hear that 161 serving police officers in the Met have a criminal conviction and it is right that every single one of those cases will be reviewed by the Met’s Professional Standards team,” he said.
“It is right that action is now being taken to review and remove vetting from officers who cannot be trusted to police London—the first step to removing them from the Met altogether.
“This work is particularly urgent for the hundreds of officers against whom allegations of sexual offending or domestic abuse have been made.
Khan said the investigations “must be concluded without delay.”
