More Than 1,000 Police Officers in London Suspended or put on Restricted Duties

Undated photo showing the New Scotland Yard sign outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London. Kirsty O’Connor/PA Media

The Metropolitan Police says around 1,000 officers are currently suspended or on restricted duties as the force tries to weed out corrupt and incompetent staff in the wake of the Casey Review.

The force’s deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Cundy, said it could take years to get rid of all the officers who have breached standards or failed vetting.

It is estimated that 60 officers a month could face the sack over at least the next two years, he told journalists at a briefing on Monday. Mr. Cundy said about 30 officers faced misconduct proceedings and 30 others face gross incompetence hearings.

In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said, “There have been significant steps to root out the hundreds who have corrupted our integrity as we tackle systemic issues that allowed them to endure.”

Undated images of Wayne Couzens (L) and David Carrick (R), who were both jailed for life for crimes committed while serving police officers. Metropolitan Police

One of the worst affected areas of the force is the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command (PaDP), the unit where both Wayne Couzens—who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard—and serial rapist David Carrick worked.

The reform of the PaDP, known as Operation Leven, has been led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor, who said hoped one in three officers in the unit would have been replaced by 2025.

The supposedly elite and heavily armed squad of around 1,000 officers guards the Houses of Parliament, foreign embassies, royal palaces and other high-profile buildings in London.

It was singled out in Baroness Louise Casey’s review last year, which said it was male-dominated, suffered from little or no supervision and contained too much unhealthy and offensive banter.

Poor Leadership and Lack of Diversity Blamed

Mr. Taylor said “unhealthy work cultures” had developed in the unit, partly because of poor leadership and a lack of diversity.

He said, “The officers need to be better supervised, they need to be better trained, and they need to be better equipped.”

The Met has launched a Women in Firearms programme, in an attempt to increase the number of female firearms officers, and said it aspired towards two out of ten members of the PaDP being female and 20 percent of officers being from an ethnic minority.

Earlier this summer the force published A New Met for London, its two-year plan for reforming the capital’s police force following a stream of scandals which led to the resignation of the previous commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick.

On Tuesday the Met gave an update on the progress it is making to remove officers whose attitudes and behaviour did not cut the mustard. It reported:

• 100 police officers had been dismissed for gross misconduct in the last year, an increase of 66 percent on the historical rate of dismissals.
• 183 officers are currently suspended, up from 69 in September 2022.
• There had been a 102 per cent increase in the number of officers awaiting a gross misconduct hearing.
• Reporting of alleged misconduct by other officers and the general public had doubled from 876 to 1,668 in the last year.
• 7,500 sergeants and their civilian equivalents have undergone training on trauma and mental health support.

The Met said 38 officers face misconduct hearings surrounding allegations of violence against women and girls and 42 involve allegations of discrimination.

Last week the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) ordered three Met officers to face gross misconduct charges over the strip searching of Child Q—a 15-year-old girl.

Cundy: ‘We are not Complacent’

Mr. Cundy said: “There is much more work to do and we are not complacent. We are heartened by how the overwhelming majority of officers and staff are stepping forward to build a better Met.”

“We hope that the progress set out today reassures Londoners that we are doing all we can deliver an organisation they deserve and our people are proud of,” he added.

On Wednesday a former Metropolitan Police officer, Ishmael Donegan, 26, will appear at Westminster magistrates’ court accused of four counts of misconduct in public office.

Mr. Donegan is accused of misusing police computer systems, including unlawfully accessing information to notify an external party, between 2019 and 2022.

PA Media contributed to this report.