Newsday - Met police 'institutionally racist and broken' says new report - BBC Sounds

A damning new report looking into London’s Metropolitan Police Service has criticised the force for its failure to tackle a racist, sexist and homophobic culture. Baroness Louise Casey has published her review into standards at Britain’s biggest police force, commissioned in the wake of the kidnap, rape and murder of a young woman, Sarah Everard, in 2021 by then-serving officer Wayne Couzens. Baroness Casey says a "boys' club" culture is rife and the force could be dismantled if it does not improve.

The Met's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley admitted "we have let Londoners down".

Anna Birley is a member of Reclaim These Streets and one of the organisers of a vigil for Sarah Everard in London. The vigil itself was was broken up by the police and, when legal action was brought by Birley and other organisers, a court found the Metropolitan Police had breached their right to freedom of assembly.

She told Newsday: "It's not surprising at all... a lot of the core of the problem is around a culture that exists within predominantly white male policing. I do feel apprehensive when I pass groups of police officers in the street and I don't know if I feel confident that if I were in trouble that I could call the police, especially if it was say, a sexual assault, and feel confident that I was going to be listened to, taken seriously, and supported."