Rape may as well be legal in London, Met Police officer said

Yes, an extremely distressing report, and radical intervention is urgently needed.. not just reassuring words. However, we need to be very careful that we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I believe that the bad apples are a minority, and it's these who should be investigated, ideally by an agency external to the Met, and rapidly removed from service. Standardised systems and processes need to be introduced which ensure that at the first sign of a potential problem, the incident is thoroughly investigated, and if proven, rapid expulsion should follow, with criminal charges being made where appropriate. As for the Met being broken up into smaller units, I don't believe that this is either practical or desirable if the most efficient approach to fighting widespread crime in the capital is to pursued. Dilution of intelligence would be the result, and the criminals would benefit. There is no quick fix, and I feel that the new head of the Met should be given a couple of years to achieve measurable results.

I read that earlier MerylStreep. It seems the post has been taken down. I may be wrong but I hope that ridiculous, offensive attempt to reduce 999 calls was made by a civilian not a police officer.

Kent police don’t rate rape as very important. In fact a hate crime is more important. But at least you can report it online

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11888161/Kent-Police-slammed-poster-classifying-sexual-assaults-non-emergency-crimes.html

I havent looked at the conviction rate in other countries, that would probably be useful particularly some European countries, although difficult due to varying definitions of sexual assault. Is it a particular issue with policing, courts in this country or is it the difficult generally of achieving rape convictions.

My lovely neighbour has recently been retired on health grounds because of back injury and ptsd. He’s a real loss to the police force but…..

MerylStreep

Changing this law might help.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/19/make-it-easier-to-sack-failing-officers-urges-met-police-chief

From Guardian report

“About 3,000 Met officers are not fully deployable because of worries over their performance or problems with physical or mental health”

It is a fact that 3000 Met police officers are attacked and injured on duty every year, are they to be denied the employment rights everyone else enjoys. It hardly surprising that a police officer that has been attacked on the street or rather cautious about going back.

I've known this for a while and it is utterly infuriating

The way victims are treated is appalling and that's the ones brave enough to come forward only to feel violated a second time by tests and questioning

All for almost no conviction rate

It's a massive failing in our country

Changing this law might help.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/19/make-it-easier-to-sack-failing-officers-urges-met-police-chief

Why did the government spend millions on a report that told gave us information that we already knew of and to add insult to injury, nothing will change. Well not in my lifetime 😡

You are right GG13, but the same is true of these and other failings in other public service professions - teachers, nurses, social workers (particularly social workers) and probably also bankers.

I agree gg13 this report is demoralising and labelling for the good officers.

12 years ago David Cameron’s austerity programme started the process of wrecking public services. 20,000 experienced officers were seen as not needed. Many other experienced officers saw the writing on the wall and went to the private sector. It seems few people aspire to CID which used to be seen as a good place to be if investigation was your aim
Many specialist units went
No wonder policing is in a mess. It has the same recruitment and retention problems as every other public service.
The met is too big.

There are no doubt a couple of hundred of misogynists, racist and bullies in the Met, there are however a couple of thousand good police officers.

I should imagine the good ones are extremely depressed and saddened at this latest report.

“The Met” is tarnished for sure but do we really believe that several separated police areas in Greater London is going to be better. Criminals operate city wide, inter force information and responsibility would become a nightmare.

It sounds like a criminals charter, even in large rural areas criminals don’t operate close to home they travel into the next police area because it slows down detection and they can get away with more.

Part of the answer must lie in recruitment and training with a readiness to dismiss out of hand recruits/trainees who cross the line. Maybe a compulsory older age of joining.

The Met needs being completely broken up into smaller units with a totally different leadership.

I listened to a report on this morning's news and was just sickened. I honestly thought it was a case of a few bad apples but to discover that this disgraceful toxic culture is so embedded is shocking. The sad thing is that good decent police will struggle to stay in the service and I'm sure there are many who just become totally disheartened.

I think also the absolutely abysmal conviction rate for rape has virtually made it legal. Rapist know the chances of conviction are also zero. So there is no fear of the consequences of their action. I'd posit a false accusation of rape is more likely to end up in a conviction than an actual rapist being held accountable.

I read some of this on line this morning, extremely depressing. The male dominated misogynistic culture is chilling. It seems to have been so well established it was seen as the norm, so impossible to challenge

It’s important that the aggressive, bullying, ‘boys banter’ culture in the firearms units are tackled immediately and effectively. I recognise that being in one of those units demands strength of character but that should never include arrogant bullying. Twenty years ago, a friend with 30 years service in a metropolitan area commented that the fire armed unit were best avoided, had an unpleasant culture.