Dulcie Lee
Live reporter

The scale of the challenge for the head of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley was laid bare in his interview a few hours ago.

Trust, public safety and diversity within the force were key themes. We're going to bring our live coverage to a close here, but there's still plenty more for you on this story:

• Catch up with the key points in our main story here
• Read more about public distrust in the Met in our polling story here
• And hear about how London's communities feel here

Today's page was edited Emma Owen, Alex Therrien and myself.

Our writers were Malu Cursino, Sam Hancock, Harry Low, Yasmin Rufo, Tim Stokes, Emily McGarvey and Alys Davies.

Thanks for joining us.

We're closing our live page shortly - here are the key points from today:

• The head of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley was grilled by BBC London and the public as he battled to save the force's reputation after a series of damaging scandals
• He said it's "nonsensical" that the force doesn't have powers to sack people conducting themselves inappropriately at work, reiterating calls for the home secretary to change this
• Dozens of officers have been moved from tackling serious crime and terrorism to investigating wrongdoing in the force

• Vetting rules have tightened and in the next six months about 100 officers will have their status reviewed and may leave the force, Rowley said
• He earlier said he expected hundreds to be kicked out over the next few years

• Public confidence in the Met Police has been shattered, a poll commissioned by BBC London found, with women's trust in the force particularly low
• Rowley said four in five original inquiries into officers accused of domestic and sexual violence in the last decade did not result in the correct action and should be reassessed
• Trust was a key theme throughout the interview, with Rowley ending by imploring Londoners to "judge us on our actions"

The Met’s reputation has been battered by a series of scandals over the last few years.

Public confidence in the force to do a good job for London has fallen from a high of 74% in 2017 to 36% in March 2022.

Let’s recap some of the most shattering moments for the force:

• March 2021: Serving Met office Wayne Couzens kidnaps, rapes and murders Sarah Everard
• March: The Met is heavily criticised for its handling of a public vigil in memory of Everard
• June: An independent report into the murder of Daniel Morgan in 1987 identifies institutional corruption in the Met
• December: Fundamental failings by the Met contributed to the deaths of serial killer Stephen Port's final three victims, an inquest finds, as the force faces accusations of homophobia
• December: Two Met officers are jailed for taking and sharing photos of two murdered women, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman
• February 2022: The police watchdog finds "disgraceful" misogyny, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment by officers mostly based at Charing Cross Police Station
• December and January: Serving Met police officer David Carrick is arrested, suspended and subsequently pleads guilty to more than 50 charges relating to 12 female victims, including 24 of rape, committed between 2003 and 2020
• March 2023: A blistering report by Baroness Casey concludes women and children have been failed by the Met, with racism, misogyny, and homophobia at the heart of the force

Image source, Reuters

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has said he's "hopeful and confident" that Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley will be able to turn around standards in the force.

Responding to the revelation that 161 officers have criminal convictions, Khan said: “One of the problems with the police is it’s easy to join but it’s difficult to get rid of bad police officers and that’s why it’s incredibly important if we’re going to change the culture….we’ve got to do this hard work.”

He said it was incredibly disturbing that four out of five inquiries into allegations of domestic and sexual violence against women over the last decade need to be reassessed.

He urged Londoners to join the Met to be part of the process of changing the service for good.

After David Carrick - a serving Met Police officer - was sentenced to 32 years in prison earlier this year, the force announced plans to review more than 1,000 investigations into officers and other staff accused of domestic abuse and sexual violence, with the option to re-open cases.

The force's review is called Operation Onyx and it's designed to ensure that the appropriate decisions were made in all those cases.

In the open letter he wrote to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Suella Braverman last night, Rowley said about four in five of the original inquiries did not result in the correct action and should be reassessed.

Of 1,131 individuals reinvestigated:

• 246 will face no formal action because correct action was taken at the time
• 689 will undergo a new assessment to pursue new or missed lines of inquiry, including possibly talking again to victims and witnesses
• 196 face formal risk management measures and potentially a review to determine if they should remain in the force

All of these cases will be reassessed by an independent panel of experts, the letter said.

The Metropolitan Police has promised to reform itself following a series of public scandals, but there are doubts over how - or when - that can happen.

At a recent group meeting of community leaders in Croydon, south London, organised following the publication of Baroness Louise Casey's review of the Met, senior officer Ch Supt Andy Brittain pleaded with attendees not to "give up on us".

"Working together, the police and the community, there will be potholes in the road," he said, admitting such issues had in recent months "come quite hard and fast".

For local activist Anthony King, who was there, he said the Casey Report simply reaffirmed what he already knew: "I was so appalled by the information and content of the report, it was disgusting to read."

See what others had to say in the clip below.

A former policing watchdog has welcomed Sir Mark Rowley's commitment to clean up the Met Police.

Zoë Billingham, who worked as Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary, for 12 years, told the BBC his commitment of an anti-corruption operation was "of an industrial scale".

She commended Rowley for this, saying it was a different approach from previous commissioners. But she warned things would get worse before they got better.

"We know that we've got over a thousand Met police officers who are being reviewed for previous allegations of serious sexual misconduct and sexual abuse, and 700 of those are subject to active investigations."

Asked about the immediate next priority, Billingham said rooting out corrupt officers had to be Rowley's first and main priority to prevent a further loss of trust.

Reality Check

During the BBC phone-in, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley claimed he had no power to remove police officers from his force. He said this was because of a “special set of regulations for police”.

In England and Wales, the rules which underpin police officers’ employment rights are laid out in Police Regulations, external.

If they want to appeal their dismissal from a force, officers in England and Wales must go through a special Police Appeals Tribunal, external.

If the tribunal rules in favour of the dismissed officer, they can be reinstated.

Forces can appeal this decision through a judicial review.

You can see a list of past appeals by Met officers, and their outcomes, here., external

Phone-in shows scale of challenge to restore trustpublished at 13:02 British Summer Time 6 April 2023

13:02 BST 6 April 2023

Sonja Jessup
BBC London home affairs correspondent

Today's phone-in was a chance for the commissioner to explain to Londoners what progress had been made on one of his key promises to restore trust: Rooting out corrupt and abusive officers.

But from the questions coming in from callers, it’s also clear the scale of the challenge he faces to restore trust in the force.

How will he improve safety for women? How will he increase diversity in policing? What will be done to improve responses to victims of crime? And what will he do to support Met colleagues, including disabled officers?

Rowley outlined a number of reforms and promised Londoners they will see change week-by-week.

He says the Met needs communities to work with them to make those reforms - but that in itself is a difficult task when trust and confidence have been so badly shaken.

If you're just joining us, or need a recap, here are some of the key issues that were put to Met chief Sir Mark Rowley during his BBC phone-in and the responses he gave.

Failings in tackling violence against women: Rowley told a domestic violence victim support worker that male predatory violence against women and children was a "massive issue" for the force, with rape reports alone quadrupling in the last decade. The force intended to be more "proactive" and less "reactive" on issues like this moving forward, he said.

Sacking police officers: Rowley said it was "nonsensical" that the Met doesn't currently have the power to sack people conducting themselves inappropriately at work - and repeated his plea for Home Secretary Suella Braverman to amend this.

Bobbies on the beat: An issue brought up again and again was local policing and the number of police community support officers in the capital, which Rowley admitted had fallen by 1,600. He said the Met intended to "stabilise" that figure and recruit more officers.

Image source, PA Media

Transparency: He admitted the Met had failed to be open and transparent in the past over its failings, but that he was already trying to change this by making details of internal investigations known to the public."Judge us on our actions and I'm sure we can start to rebuild that trust," he said.

Diversity in the Met, including senior officers: Rowley was grilled on the number of women working in his force, which he said stands at just 30%. A recruitment campaign is on the way, he said. And when pushed on his own leadership team, he admitted there was not a single person of colour, calling it a "failing".

Ableism, a failure to follow up with victims and tackling major crime: On a number of issues, including discrimination against those with disabilities, Rowley blamed the Met's stretched resources, which Baroness Casey outlined in her recent review , externalof the force. He added he came back to the force from a "very comfortable retirement... to sort [issues like this] out".

We've just heard from Sir Mark Rowley on the steps he is taking as commissioner of the Met to clean up the force.

During a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with the BBC, Rowley said the force needed to be transparent in its reforms.

Watch the clip above.

Image source, PA Media

We've just spent an hour hearing from Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley, as he fights to turn around the Met's reputation. So who is he?

The 58-year-old took over as the head of the Met in September after a series of crises and controversies that ultimately led to the resignation of his predecessor Cressida Dick.

A maths graduate at Cambridge University, Rowley's policing career began inauspiciously when he was turned down by the Met due to his poor eyesight. Instead, he joined his local force, West Midlands Police, in 1987.

By 2009 he had become chief constable of Surrey Police, then joined the Met Police as assistant commissioner in 2011.

He became known to the UK public as the face in charge of counter-terrorism policing from 2014-18. The so-called Islamic State group declared its caliphate in Syria and Iraq on his second day in the job.

Rowley spent three years leading the network set up to prevent terrorist attacks. Soon afterwards, he applied to lead the Met, but was overlooked in favour of Cressida Dick, and retired from policing in 2018.

He returned to policing to take over from Dick.

• You can read Rowley's full profile here.
• And listen to an insight into his character on BBC Sounds.

Rowley says he completely understands why people's confidence in the Met Police is shaken - citing "all the ghastly events and reporting".

He says he's determined to be transparent, "get all of the gruesome facts out there" and show action is being taken.

"That's bound to shake trust, and I completely understand that, but what I'm sure you will see is that, step by step, we are going to improve the policing of London.

"Judge us on our actions and I'm sure we can start to rebuild that trust."

And that marks the end of the Q&A.

And finally, it all comes down to that key question.

After answering the public's questions for the last hour, Nestor wraps up by asking Rowley why Londoners should trust him to reform the force?

Rowley responds to Pat with two key points, saying:

• the Met has victim care to include officers now and that's being "strengthened"
• the force is constantly looking at officers' day-to-day stresses, which can come not just from one "ghastly event" but be the small stresses caused by everyday policing.

"We need to do a lot more," he says, adding there's time and money being spent on ensuring there's peer trauma support and counselling in place.

All of this is necessary to ensure the "good" officers fighting to keep the streets of London safe get the support they need, he tells Pat.

Pat asks Rowley how the good officers within the police are being supported, given the high-pressure work they do.

Rowley says he will get his team to contact Raj if he shares his details afterwards.

"Sounds like we've let you down there, and I'm sorry about that," the Met commissioner says.

Another burglary question up next - Raj shares his experience of being a victim.

He says it took the police eight days to come round to his property and they spent five minutes taking notes and then never followed up. Is this acceptable?

Rowley says the Met is attending all reported burglaries because people deserve the reassurance.

He says the Met is trying to cut back on certain areas, which he says should not be falling to the police force, and this will in turn allow officers to pay visits to houses that have been burgled.

The Met commissioner says a lot of mental health cases have fallen to the police force because the NHS has been unable to deal with the case load, but he adds that the Met is in conversation with the government - which says more funding towards mental health will go into the NHS.

Rowley adds that on domestic abuse, the Met is trying to be predator-focused and therefore is working on domestic violence prevention rather than dealing with it after the fact.

Kadija from Redbridge tells Rowley that her property was broken into last week and it took the police five hours to attend the scene.

She wants to know how the police can help make women feel safer.