Casey Review: Met rotten to core, says Stephen Lawrence's mother

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993

Baroness Lawrence has said the Met Police is still "rotten to the core" 30 years after her son, Stephen, was murdered and the force was found to be institutionally racist.

The Casey Review found evidence of continuing systemic racism in the Met, against both staff and the public.

Officers told the BBC they had experienced racist abuse on the job.

The Met's Commissioner Mark Rowley said he accepts the report's "diagnosis" but not the term "institutional".

The following report contains language which some people may find offensive

The report by Baroness Louise Casey comes 24 years after the Macpherson Report, which looked at the investigation into Stephen Lawrence's racially-motivated killing and exposed institutional racism in the Met, the UK's biggest police force.

The Casey Review was commissioned after the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer and other incidents involving its staff raised questions about the Met's internal culture.

Prejudice is "alive and well" in the Met, the Casey Review says, with the consequences felt by those working in the organisation and the millions of people served by it.

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Baroness Lawrence said it was "no surprise" to her that discrimination "in every form is clearly rampant in its ranks", after the report also unearthed widespread evidence of homophobia and misogyny.

She said the Met had had "30 years to put its house in order" since her son's murder but has failed to do, "either because it does not want to or it does not know how to".

The Casey Review found black Londoners remained "over-policed and under-protected", and said those from an ethnic minority background were more likely to be stopped and searched, handcuffed, batoned and Tasered, creating a situation where trust and consent have been eroded.

Despite policing the most diverse city in the country, more than four-fifths of Met officers were white and the report said this would take nearly 40 years to correct on current recruitment trajectories.

Bullying is rife within the Met's ranks, the report says, and leaders do not take claims of discrimination seriously, with the complaint often being "turned against" an officer from an ethnic minority. This meant black officers were 81% more likely to be involved in misconduct hearings than their white counterparts, it found.

Speaking anonymously to the BBC's Newsnight programme, a black serving Met officer said: "I've been called a monkey; a banana has been left on my chair. It's just unbelievable. They're sick."

"You think this might have happened decades ago but to still happen now, it just shows nothing has changed. I have no faith in the people here because it just goes on and on. I wish those people could feel what we feel. They deserve to suffer the pain racism makes us feel."

An anonymous Asian officer said they had been told on duty they "smell of curry", that they look "dirty" and "filthy" and "need to have a wash".

The same officer said the force's "canteen culture, as it's called, is so deep and strong that it's impossible to get rid of".

Baroness Casey spoke to serving officers as part of her investigation. One black female officer said she felt she "had to try to be invisible", or risk getting "a reputation as a troublemaker".

A former senior officer recounted the "humiliating" experience of being stopped and searched, and another black officer said colleagues had on occasion mistaken him for a prisoner or potential intruder in police stations.

Another black female officer said they witnessed a white officer using highly offensive racist language to verbally abuse a white woman who had been caught buying drugs from a black man.

The report found a persistent view among some in the Met that people from ethnic minorities who progress only do so because of positive action initiatives.

One senior officer said they were openly asked in a large meeting in 2022 "did you get where you got to because you are black?".

A Sikh officer told Baroness Casey they "don't feel comfortable" telling others from their community to join the force.

Another told Baroness Casey: "The ugly truth is that the organisation is riddled with racism - how much have people like me acquiesced?"

Shabnam Chaudhri, a former detective superintendent for the Met, said the report made for "very hard reading".

"I was shocked, I didn't think I could be," she told the BBC's Asian Network. "I feel for all of the officers that are having to endure behaviour like this."

But the former detective said that, while Baroness Casey "did a brilliant review," she would suspect "there were areas" of policing affecting South Asian and minority officers that "hadn't been covered" by the report as "they might have been scared they were identified and subjected to further victimisation".

Abdul, who lives in London, told Asian Network that he was first searched by police at the age of 13.

He said: "I went to a funfair in Mile End (in east London), and I had some tissues in my pocket. The police started searching me because they thought they were drugs.

"The way the police operate with younger people is aggressive, defensive… if they approach them in an aggressive manner, of course they're going to get the same back."

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Sir Mark Rowley has accepted there are systemic biases within the Met and says he is committed to rooting out racist, homophobic and misogynistic staff.

But his decision not to endorse the word "institutional" was criticised by Mina Smallman, whose daughters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry were murdered in London in June 2020. Two Met officers were subsequently jailed for sharing images of their bodies in a WhatsApp group.

Sir Mark said the word institutional is ambiguous and has been politicised.

Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry had been celebrating Ms Henry's birthday before they were reported missing

Ms Smallman said that black people will read the report and feel "we've been saying this for years".

She told the BBC "I kind of understand what he's trying to say," but added: "You have to accept this. This [institutional] is a term that the Met and big institutions fear and run away from."

She continued: "I think it's weak. That weakened him," adding: "It's not a time for wordplay or semantics. It's a time for action."

Responding to the report, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Sir Mark should "go further and faster" to uncover the systemic problems within the Met.

Setting out his view on how Labour would raise confidence in police forces across the UK, he said the party will be "relentless in demanding progress and change".

He added: "The biggest danger today is that this just becomes another report."

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the report makes "very concerning reading" and shows the force "faces a long road to recovery".

Addressing the Commons, Ms Braverman said she would ensure the force has "all the support" it needs from the government to deliver on Sir Mark's pledge of "more trust, less crime and high standards".

She added: "Every officer in the force needs to be part of making these changes happen."

Baroness Casey uncovered evidence of widespread failings, including chronic under-resourcing for tackling crimes against women and children, the collapse of neighbourhood policing and oversight failures which have allowed predatory behaviour to "flourish".