By Martin Bentham

   New Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has a comprehensive blueprint for overhauling his force’s culture and restoring Londoners’ trust in police, Mayor Sadiq Khan has said.

Mr Khan said he was confident that Sir Mark — who will take over as the next head of Scotland Yard in the coming weeks — understood the scale of the problems facing the Met and was the right person to take on the challenge of transforming it from day one in his new job. The Mayor added that a “raft of reforms” were “urgently needed” but he believed Sir Mark would work with City Hall to dramatically improve his force’s performance and to “rebuild the trust of Londoners in the police and get the basics right”.

“Sir Mark understands the depths of the cultural issues facing the Met and already has a comprehensive plan to sort this out and win back public confidence and is ready to be the reforming commissioner Londoners need and deserve,” Mr Khan added. “I will work closely with Sir Mark to bear down on crime, make London safer and deliver a bigger and better Met that all Londoners and officers can be proud of.”

  Claire Waxman, London’s victims’ commissioner, said women’s safety should be “an absolute priority” for Sir Mark but that other crime victims also needed reassurance that police efforts on their behalf would improve. “The new Met Commissioner needs to very quickly engage with the community groups and victims who have been failed by the police to rebuild their trust and confidence, and to be transparent about his plans for reform,” she said. “It is vital that he reassures women in London that their safety is an absolute priority and I expect to work closely with him to drive forward the much-needed changes to the way that the Met Police responds to victims.” Today’s comments follow Sir Mark’s appointment on Friday in a joint announcement by Home Secretary Priti Patel and the Mayor.

Sir Mark, who retired from policing in 2018 after a long career in which he spent the final four years as the national head of counter-terrorism, said he was “deeply honoured” to be returning to lead the Met.

   He pledged to “fight crime with communities – not unilaterally dispense tactics” and is expected to boost neighbourhood policing in an effort to rebuild trust in the force, particularly among black Londoners and others whose confidence has been damaged by the scandals that have engulfed the force.

Sir Mark said he also wanted to reform the Met’s “culture and policing approach” and develop the use of technology and data and was “determined to support the urgent reforms we need to deliver successful community crime fighting”. His appointment comes in the wake of a succession of scandals which have hit the Met over the past year and more including the rape and murder of Sarah Everard, the failures in the Stephen Port murder investigations, the strip searching of Child Q and the racist and misogynistic conduct of some officers at Charing Cross police station. Those problems and others prompted Mr Khan to say that he had lost confidence in the then Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick, who quit as a result. The force has since been placed under special measures by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services because of its poor performance in a number of key areas in a further blow to its reputation.

 Mr Khan said before Sir Mark’s appointment that he wanted a candidate who understood the need to overhaul the Met’s culture and is understood to have been impressed by the fact that the new Commissioner has spent the four years outside policing and should be able to bring a fresher perspective to his new job.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/new-met-police-commissioner-sir-mark-rawley-rebuild-trust-sadiq-khan-b1011484.html

By Diane Taylor

   A black teenager who claims he has been treated as a gang member by police rather than as a victim of county lines grooming is bringing what is thought to be the first complaint of its kind against the Metropolitan police for failing to protect him.

   The 19-year-old is in hiding from the gang he says kidnapped him and tried to force him to get involved in committing crimes for them. He says that even before he was exploited by the county lines gang he was a victim of racist stereotyping by the Met because of his ethnicity and that he was falsely accused of being involved in various crimes in which he was later found to have had no involvement.

The legal complaint, launched last Friday, claims in a letter before action that police failed in their duty to protect and safeguard him, failed to treat him as a victim and racially stereotyped him. He has accused the police of breaching the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act. He is suffering from mental health problems as a result of his county lines exploitation and the lack of support he received.

   From the age of 15 he went missing from school on several occasions. His mother reported these incidents to the police but says that no action was taken. At the age of 16 he left school and joined the army. He claims he was wrongly accused of being in a gang rather than being a victim of gang exploitation simply because he knew people who grew up in the same neighbourhood as him who were believed by police to be gang members. Even after he joined the army, the grooming continued, the legal letter states, and on one occasion he was found in Scotland after going missing because of being exploited by the gang.

   He claims he was kidnapped by the gang in October last year, held captive at a house in London and beaten up. He managed to use his phone to call 999 while he was being held by the gang, but despite providing the address to police he claims that nothing was done to help him.

He managed to escape from the gang after a few days and then had a mental breakdown on Oxford Street in London. He was taken to hospital and is now receiving out-patient treatment for his mental health problems. One gang member who had been imprisoned sent him a threatening Snapchat message after his release, saying: “I’m out, will be seeing you very soon.”

  The teenager’s mother said: “As a mum, I have tried my utmost to protect my children from harm. I have raised concerns with the police for a few years now that my son is being groomed but I was ignored. I had to flee my home, leave my job; my daughter is out of school. I have no stable accommodation and threats have been made to our family. The only thing I have left now is my voice and this is why I have decided to share what has happened.”

Attiq Malik of Liberty Law Solicitors, who is representing the complainant against the Met, said: “It is extremely concerning that children who are victims of grooming and modern slavery consistently fail to receive the support and attention that is required for them from public authorities such as the police and are instead categorised and treated as gang members simply because of narratives and stereotypes associated with their race.”

  Kevin Blowe, the campaigns coordinator at the police monitoring organisation Netpol, said: “The Metropolitan police’s whole approach to its war on ‘county lines’ is fuelled by racist stereotypes about young black people and about the neighbourhoods where they live.

“For anyone who becomes a victim of crime like the claimant in this case, the stigma of unfair association with a gang not only means more stop and searches and more likelihood of wrongful arrest but also clouds their relationship with other services who are supposed to help and support them. It is little wonder, so few are prepared or even able to bring a legal challenge of this kind.”

The Met has been approached for comment.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/20/teenager-complaint-against-metropolitan-police-county-lines

By Nadia Khomami  

  A man who was shot with a Taser by police in London and had to be rescued from the Thames has died, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has said.  Police were called to Chelsea Bridge Road in west London on Saturday morning after receiving reports that a man was armed with a screwdriver and shouting.  When officers arrived shortly after, the Metropolitan police said they had challenged a man on Chelsea Bridge and discharged a stun gun but that “did not enable the officers to safely detain him”.  The man, in his early 40s, “subsequently entered the river”, police said, and was rescued by the RNLI, which took him to hospital, where his condition was assessed as critical.  

 The IOPC said on Sunday that the man had died in hospital and an independent inquiry was under way.  The police watchdog’s director, Steve Noonan, said: “We have spoken to the man’s family to express our sincere condolences and explain our involvement. Our sympathies remain with them at this terrible time.  “Our independent investigation is under way into the police actions at the bridge and we have begun gathering and reviewing evidence.”  Video of the incident posted online shows two officers confronting the man, who falls to the ground after the stun gun is discharged.  After struggling, the man gets up and runs to the side of the bridge and pulls himself over the edge before either officer can reach him.  Commander Alexis Boon said: “My thoughts are with the family of the man at this very difficult time. I offer my sincere condolences to them for their tragic loss.  “Officers go to work every day to keep the public safe, and so any incident in which a person comes to harm following contact with police is understandably concerning.  “Our officers face some of the most challenging and difficult situations daily, in doing so they are fully aware that their actions should rightly be subject to public scrutiny.  

   “The Met’s directorate of professional standards made an immediate referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct following this sad incident, and we will cooperate fully with them as they work to understand the full circumstances.”  Police use of stun guns, known commonly as Tasers, has been the subject of numerous controversies in the past. The IOPC found in February that a Met police officer who shot a 10-year-old girl with such a weapon should face gross misconduct proceedings. The officer fired at the girl in south-west London after reports she had been threatening a woman with garden shears and a hammer.  The following month, an officer was charged with grievous bodily harm after a man was shot with a Taser and left paralysed from the chest down. 

   Officers from the Met’s Territorial Support Group had stopped Jordan Walker-Brown, 25, on two consecutive days on 3 and 4 May 2020, and both times he was found to be carrying a small amount of cannabis for personal use. He was jumping over a wall, which was about 1.2 metres (4ft) high on one side but had a 1.8-metre drop on the other, when he was struck by the Taser. He then fell over the wall.  A social worker who was shot with a Taser and knocked unconscious during a roadside stop last month said police had treated him like a “wild animal”. Edwin Afriyie, 36, is suing City of London police after suffering a head injury and suicidal thoughts as a result of the incident.  The latest incident comes as the home secretary, Priti Patel, announced that special constables will be given access to stun guns as part of a range of new crime initiatives. Amnesty International UK’s policing expert said in response that arming volunteer officers was dangerous and would inevitably lead to “more instances of misuse, serious harm and death from Tasers”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/05/man-rescued-from-thames-after-being-shot-with-taser-by-police-dies

By Vikram Dodd    

  Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, spoke at City Hall on Friday about the need to rebuild public trust and confidence in policing in the capital. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has warned the candidates wanting to lead the Metropolitan police they must publicly admit the force’s systemic failings, with formal interviews due to begin next week.

Two senior police figures have reached the final stages of the process to be the commissioner of Britain’s biggest and most controversial force.

Khan used a speech to stress he would not support any candidate who did not commit to sweeping reforms.

 As well as being the mayor, Khan is the elected police and crime commissioner for London. The head of the Met is formally appointed by the home secretary, who has to have due regard to the views of the mayor.

In practice, if the mayor declares he does not have confidence in a Met commissioner, they are expected to resign. In February Cressida Dick resigned after falling out with Khan, who was unconvinced she could turn the Met around after a series of scandals.

Khan said in his speech: “I want to make crystal clear today I won’t support the appointment of a new commissioner unless they can demonstrate they understand the true extent of the cultural and organisational problems within the Met.

“That they appreciate the moral and operational imperatives to confront them head on and that they have a convincing plan to reduce crime further, improve detection rates and bring more criminals to justice.”

The advert for the commissioner’s job, which was issued by the Home Office and the London mayor, made clear the need for radical reforms. After Khan’s speech government sources said there was little or no difference between the Conservatives and the Labour mayor on the need for an overhaul of the Met. The candidates will be grilled next week by a panel chaired by Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary at the Home Office, and including the former chief inspector of constabulary Sir Tom Winsor and a senior official from the mayor’s office.

 Going before them will be assistant commissioner Nick Ephgrave, who was in the Met’s senior leadership from 2019 as a series of scandals unfolded.

He will have to convince the panel he can reform the culture of the force. After a serving Met officer was jailed in September 2021 for the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, Ephgrave said women anxious about a police officer who approached them on a street could wave down a bus. He did add the scandal meant the Met needed to “examine our own culture”.

The strong frontrunner is Sir Mark Rowley, who in 2018 left the Met having served as an assistant commissioner in charge of counterterrorism. While in the force he impressed some with his calmness under the pressure of the wave of terror attacks in 2017. Before that role, he had backed the attempt for the Met to use water cannon to douse crowds.

Both candidates were previously chief constables of Surrey police, and regarded as able by policing colleagues.

In his speech Khan stressed the majority of Met officers did a great job, as he tried to deflect claims political manoeuvres by himself were damaging the force. “It’s not being political. It’s democracy in action. It’s the checks and balances of power, without which we’d still be living with the kind of policing we saw before the Stephen Lawrence inquiry,” he said.

  The string of crises and dissatisfaction has led to a haemorrhaging of public confidence in the Met, according to polling conducted for the London mayor. The current Met leadership believe other polling has showed the public is happier with them. Multiple sources say the Met’s senior leadership believe the treatment of the force and its leadership has been unfair.

The Conservative government deterred assistant commissioner Neil Basu from applying, believing he was too outspoken on issues such as racial justice. Basu was seen as the frontrunner and would have been the first minority ethnic Briton to lead the Met. He was then also blocked from leading the National Crime Agency.

  The panel interviews for the Met commissioner job will be followed by further grillings by the home secretary and Khan. The policing minister, Kit Malthouse, may also interview the candidates, and it is an open secret Downing Street, despite having no formal role, will also approve the choice of the next commissioner.

No decision is expected until July and the commissioner is technically appointed on a royal warrant by the Queen.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/17/sadiq-khan-says-new-met-commissioner-must-admit-to-forces-failings

By Ross Lydall

  The police watchdog acted after a series of scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer and failures in the investigation into the serial killer Stephen Port, that it said were likely to have a “chilling effect” on public confidence. Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary also unearthed “systemic failings” in routine policing, such as the failure to record the reason for a quarter of stop-and-search operations and the failure to log 69,000 crimes a year. A source close to Home Secretary Priti Patel accused Mr Khan of being “asleep at the wheel”. But the Mayor hit back, saying he had been calling for some time for systemic and cultural changes in the force “in the face of opposition from Priti Patel and Boris Johnson”. 

  The HMI report was said to contain no direct criticism of Mr Khan — who as police and crime commissioner has overseen the Met for the past six years — or of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, which sets the Met’s strategy and its £4.6 billion annual budget. But critics questioned the Mayor’s role and that of his deputy mayor for policing, Sophie Linden, who was asked at a public meeting on Tuesday night how the Met’s failings were not her responsibility or that of Mr Khan. Nickie Aiken, the prominent London Tory MP, said: “Sadiq Khan cannot continue to pass the buck and blame others. Crime continues to climb on his watch, neighbourhood policing has been decimated. Perhaps it’s not the commissioner who needs changing but his deputy mayor for policing.” Latest data from Mopac reveals that, in the 12 months to May, the total number of offences reported to the Met was up more than 10 per cent year on year to 850,162.  This included an 8.5 per cent rise in violence against the person — almost 250,000 crimes — sexual offences up 26 per cent, rape up 17 per cent and knife crime up five per cent, though homicide was down 10 per cent and youth homicide down a third. 

  The source close to Ms Patel said: “The Mayor’s focus on ideas not within his gift, like decriminalising drugs, means the force is now in special measures. He needs to get a grip instead of drifting through his time at City Hall.” Speaking at the State of London debate last night, Mr Khan “welcomed” the decision of HMI to place the Met in special measures. He had previously referred the Stephen Port case to the inspectorate and has ordered a new strategy on the way the Met tackles violence against women and girls, in light of the murders of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman and of Sabina Nessa. He said the next Met commissioner — either Sir Mark Rowley or Nick Ephgrave is expected to be appointed next month — needed to be a “reforming commissioner” to win back the trust and confidence of Londoners. Ms Linden admitted that special measures “immediately won’t make a huge difference” to day-to-day policing. She said it would be up to the next commissioner to restore confidence but added: “It’s not just one person who can fix the Met.” Susan Hall, leader of the GLA Conservatives, said: “Khan should be embarrassed with the decision to put the Met into special measures, but instead he has welcomed it in order to deflect any blame that sits with him. “This damning indictment is a sign of his total failure to deliver for Londoners. Rather than take responsibility and take tough decisions, he has left the problems at the feet of the new incoming commissioner.” 

  Today 29 London Labour MPs signed a letter organised by Dawn Butler, the MP for Brent Central, saying they had been calling for several years for changes to the Met to be made in the public interest but had been met with resistance.  Sir Hugh Orde, a former deputy assistant commissioner at the Met, said it would be unable to make progress while a “political bun fight” was in progress. He told LBC: “There is a real issue of leadership clearly evident in the Met. I think this goes back a long way, some of this started way beyond the last commissioner. “My personal view is the Met has got too big and it almost needs to be broken down into five areas like it was before with real grip and real care and effort at working with communities.” A source close to Mr Khan said on Wednesday: “The Home Secretary oversees policing in England and a significant number of the forces she oversees are now in special measures. That fact tells you all you need to know about policing under this Tory government.” A spokesman for HMI inspectorate declined to comment.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/metropolitan-police-special-measures-priti-patel-sadiq-khan-mayor-officers-b1009076.html

By Vikram Dodd

Exclusive: watchdog’s decision follows nearly 70,000 unrecorded crimes

and errors in stop and search.

Some of the Met’s new failings uncovered by the Guardian included the grounds for one quarter of stop and searches not recorded, thus thwarting scrutiny of whether they were justifiable. 

The policing inspectorate’s unprecedented decision to place the Metropolitan police into

special measures followed the uncovering of a litany of new “systemic” failings in fighting

crime and serving victims, with tens of thousands of crimes going unrecorded and errors in stop and search.

The decision was taken by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and follows an

inspection that found 14 fresh significant failings, coming on top of a flood of scandals

“chilling” in their damage to public confidence.

The results of that inspection will be published soon, but can be revealed by the Guardian. They include nearly 70,000 crimes going unrecorded by the Met, Britain’s biggest force which covers most of London.

Furthermore, the force was found to be failing to meet national standards, and also making errors on stop and search with the grounds for one quarter of stops not recorded, thus thwarting scrutiny of whether they were justifiable.

HMIC also cited a series of scandals: from the murder of Sarah Everard by the serving Met officer Wayne Couzens; the strip-searching of innocent children such as Child Q; stop and search controversies such as that of the champion athlete Bianca Williams; and grossly offensive attitudes among officials revealed by messages exchanged between officers at Charing Cross police station. It also noted the “seemingly incomprehensible failures to recognise and treat appropriately a series of suspicious deaths in the Stephen Port case”.

A letter dated 28 June by Matt Parr, from the inspectorate, sets out the full reasons to place the Met in special measures, which is officially called “engage”. It was sent to Sir Stephen House, acting commissioner of the Met after the ousting of Cressida Dick in February by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, who believed she lacked a plan to restore confidence.

The two held crisis talks last Friday where the Met leadership were told they would face the

dramatic intervention by HMIC. It is all the more painful for Scotland Yard as many in its

leadership felt criticism of the force was unfair and they had a plan to pull the force out of perpetual crisis. In the letter, seen by the Guardian, Parr details the 14 new failings and areas of concern:

 “Performance falling far short of national standards for the handling of emergency and non-emergency calls, including too many instances of failure to assess vulnerability and repeat victimisation, failures to provide crime prevention advice and failures to properly advise victims on how to preserve evidence.”

 “A barely adequate standard of crime recording accuracy, with an estimated 69,000 crimes going unrecorded each year, less than half of crime recorded within 24 hours, and almost no crimes recorded when victims report antisocial behaviour against them.”

 Failing to tell some victims investigations into their crime were being dropped.

 Not seeking or considering victims’ views.

 Poor supervision of some investigations and failures in public protection.

Furthermore, the force that considers itself a leader in law enforcement was told in the letter there were concerns about “a persistently large backlog of online child abuse referrals”, “an insufficient understanding of the force’s training requirements” and concerns about how it

manages its assets, resources and how the Met understands the demands it faces.

On stop and search, Parr’s letter to the acting Met commissioner said: “In roughly a quarter

of stop and search cases, failure to record the grounds for the search in sufficient detail to enable an independent judgment to be made as to whether reasonable grounds existed.”

The letter says the official policing inspectorate has “for a considerable time … had substantial and persistent concerns about several aspects of the MPS’ [Met’s] performance.” It cites the inspection after the Daniel Morgan report into corruption and the Met that found serious failings. But the inspectorate adds: “The gravity of the matter is amplified by the presence of a relatively young, inexperienced workforce – a consequence of the MPS’ increased recruitment enabled by the police uplift programme.”

The Met has been rocked by a series of scandals and public confidence has fallen during the five years Dick was commissioner. Parr wrote: “There are also several examples of high-profile incidents – some recent, some less so – that raise ongoing concerns about the force’s performance, or that are likely to have a chilling effect on public trust and confidence in the MPS (and, in some instances, both).”

Parr says the Met has successes, but they are outweighed by the problems: “Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of so many concerns has prompted us to move the force into Engage.” In a statement the Met said: “We recognise the cumulative impact of events and problems that the Met is dealing with. We understand the impact this has had on communities and we share their disappointment. “We are determined to be a police service Londoners can be proud of. We are talking to the Inspectorate about next steps.” The family of Child Q, whose treatment by the Met caused outrage, said: “The Metropolitan Police has shown time and again that it cannot do its job properly and its officers’ actions have had life-changing, devastating consequences for innocent people across London, including Child Q. It is no wonder that there is little to no faith left in the Metropolitan Police.”

Next month the new Met commissioner is expected to be announced and the last two

candidates are Sir Mark Rowley, a former head of counter-terrorism who left policing in 2018, and Nick Ephgrave, an assistant commissioner in the Met who led local policing. Last week they went before a board and will soon be interviewed by the home secretary, Priti Patel, who makes the appointment having regard to the views of the mayor of London.

Both Patel and Khan have longstanding concerns about the Met.

In a statement Patel welcomed the Met being put into special measures, saying: “The process to recruit a new commissioner is well under way and I have made clear that the successful candidate must demonstrate sustained improvements in the Metropolitan police service in order to regain public trust both in London and across the country.”

In a statement the policing inspectorate confirmed the special measures for the Met to provide “additional scrutiny and support ​to help make improvements”.

In a statement Khan said: “The HMIC has raised very serious concerns about the Met’s

performance and I welcome the additional scrutiny and support that these measures will now bring. Unlike many others, I have long been clear that wide-ranging reforms are urgently needed for the Met to regain the trust and confidence of Londoners – which is so vital to policing by consent.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/28/met-police-placed-special-measures-series-scandals

  by Reshma Ragoonath

  Governor Martyn Roper said Cayman needs to do more when it comes to going after the proceeds of crime. Roper, speaking at the opening of a training seminar hosted by the US Embassy in Sarajevo last week, held at the RCIPS Training centre in Cayman, said the jurisdiction has its challenges like everywhere in the world but is regarded as “generally well governed”. Erik Larson, US Embassy (Sarajevo) senior anti-corruption advisor, Governor Martyn Roper and Dr. Erduan Kafedzic, chief of the Sarajevo Canton Anti-Corruption Office. He said corruption needs to be seen as a global problem that erodes public trust and undermines governments, large and small, and the private sector to deliver on behalf of their citizens. In Cayman, he said mechanisms to “go after the proceeds of crime” need to be strengthened. “At the moment, our legislative framework is not quite where it needs to be. But we do have a very positive, proactive approach to international law enforcement cooperation… which is pretty fundamental to this jurisdiction with its financial services industry being a key pillar to the economy,” he said. 

    Despite this, Cayman’s legal and law enforcement mechanisms in the fight against corruption and terrorist financing earned high marks at the recently-concluded seminar. Erik Larson, US Embassy (Sarajevo) senior anti-corruption advisor. Local legislation and crime-fighting efforts took centre-stage as a team of Bosnian prosecutors, police and anti-corruption officials participated in the training conference and learned firsthand about systems in place here to flag abuse and guard against illegal activities. “Cayman is actually a leader in addressing some of these problems. That’s one of the reasons we’re here. There are other overseas banking centers that are perhaps not as far advanced as Cayman’s,” Erik Larson, senior anti-corruption advisor at the US Embassy in Sarajevo told the Cayman Compass. The training seminar, which focused on international financial investigations in corruption cases, was hosted in partnership with the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service and the UK government. The seminar commenced in Miami on 4 June and moved to Cayman last week for the closing days, during which the international participants were briefed by various local and international experts on anti-corruption investigations. Cayman, he said, is a major overseas financial centre with unique and fairly sophisticated experience in tracking criminal financial flows. “So we want to take advantage of that and have all the authorities here share some of the best practices… since they have a lot of very relevant experience in fighting corruption and organised crime,” Larson explained. He said the training seminar was a critical component to help Bosnia and Herzegovina tackle the corruption challenges they are experiencing there. Participants included Bosnian anti-corruption officials and investigators. 

   With the country seeking to join the EU and NATO, Larson said it risks opening them up to “malign foreign influence and its impacting the economy”. Global partnership important in fight against corruption Balkan-organised crime groups, Larson said, dominate the South America/Europe cocaine trade which means there’s a lot of money coming from this hemisphere through the Balkans. Financial Reporting Authority Director RJ Berry. The sessions from the seminar, he said, leaned towards skills for complex international investigations. “Unfortunately, sometimes the criminals are better than us on the prosecution police side… I am talking globally. I’m a prosecutor by background,” Larson explained. He pointed out that administrative bodies like anti-corruption commissions play an important role. The seminar, which ended Friday, featured a number of presentation from local entities including the Financial Reporting Authority, the RCIPS, the Ombudsman and the Anti-Corruption Commission. FRA Director RJ Berry shared details on the various legislative requirements that protect the financial services industry from abuse. Berry said in the last year 1,025 cases were handled by the FRA with 99 requests received from foreign counterparts. Cayman, he added, made 59 inquiries to foreign FRA counterparts. 

https://www.caymancompass.com/2022/06/14/governor-law-to-go-after-proceeds-of-crime-not-where-it-needs-to-be/

By Sami Quadri   

 A father-of-three has been found guilty of murdering his wife at their home in east London. Muhammad Ilyas, 41, killed Maria Rafael Chavex, 32, at their home on Kingston Road in Ilford on May 13, 2021. Police rushed to the property following concerns about her welfare but Ms Chavex was found unresponsive and later died at the scene. 

  Detective Chief Inspector Laurence Smith, from the Specialist Crime Command, said: “Ilyas has not offered any explanation about the circumstances that led to his wife’s death and has refused to accept responsibility for her murder. “This is a tragic case that has left three children without their parents and I’m sure what they’ve been through will remain with them for the rest of their lives. My thoughts are with them and the rest of Maria’s family and friends.”  An initial investigation found Maria hadn’t suffered any obvious injuries and there were no signs of a disturbance. Officers arranged for a special post-mortem examination to establish how she died. The examination revealed Maria had suffered compression to her neck, likely to have been as a result of being strangled. Homicide detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command carried out further enquiries, which included collecting CCTV evidence and speaking to neighbours. 

  This information, along with the pathologist’s findings, helped officers establish that Ilyas had killed Maria during the afternoon of May 13, 2021 when the couple’s three children were at school. Ilyas was arrested and interviewed about his involvement in Maria’s death. He denied killing Maria and told officers he believed she had died from natural causes. The findings of the post-mortem examination disproved this. The couple had moved the UK in 2019 and Maria was attending a college course to learn English at the time of her death. Ilyas was working on a market stall in Stratford. Ilyas will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday, July 1. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ilford-murder-muhammad-ilyas-maria-wife-london-news-crime-b1005498.html

By Barney Davis

  A man who stabbed his wife at least 17 times, tried to smother her with a duvet before chillingly telling her “have you not died yet?” has been jailed for her attempted murder. Zef Gjoni, 28, attacked his wife at their home in Thornton Heath and then claimed to police she had cut herself due to being kept away from her family over lockdown. But a court heard he set upon her with two knives after realising she had taken her phone to the bathroom and contacted a family member at around 4am on April 1 2020. Gjoni had stopped her from contacting her mother in Romania just hours before. 

  She was found suffering a total of at least 17 discernible stab wounds and a collapsed lung. During the attack, Gjoni put a duvet over the victim’s head and asked: “Have you not died yet?” The victim pleaded for Gjoni to stop and call an ambulance. When he finally called 999, he told the operator that he and his wife had had an argument and that she had stabbed herself in the heart two or three times. Police and paramedics arrived and the victim was able to tell them through a Romanian interpreter that the injuries had been inflicted by Gjoni. He was arrested at the scene. 

  On Friday at Croydon Crown Court, Gjoni was sentenced to 19 years in prison and a further five years on extended licence. Thea Viney, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “This was a senseless and violent attack inside a marital home. “Zef Gjoni armed himself with two kitchen knives before launching an unprovoked attack on his own wife just because she wanted to speak to her family. The victim who has since left the country, is lucky to be alive. “

  During police interview Gjoni told officers that the Coronavirus lockdown had upset his wife because she was being separated from her family in Romania. He told them she had been cutting herself in the bathroom, but the jury was able to see through this blatant lie. “The prosecution case included medical evidence and statements from the victim who had to spend two weeks in hospital recovering from her stab wounds. “The CPS is absolutely committed to securing justice for victims of domestic abuse and will always prosecute these cases where there is the evidence to do so.” 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/croydon-husband-stabbed-wife-duvet-have-you-not-died-yet-crime-london-b1005432.html

By Sami Quadri

 The Met Police have appealed for information after a teenager was stabbed in a pub in northeast London. Police rushed to the High Road junction along White Hart Lane, Haringey at 1.58am on Sunday, April 10 following reports of a confrontation. A man in his late teens was found with a stab injury to his abdomen. The victim and a group of friends had been dancing at the venue until another group of males began harassing females in their party. The victim intervened and told the group to leave them alone, which resulted in him being stabbed. 

 Detectives of the North Area Basic Command Unit are investigating and are appealing to members of the public for information that could help to identify the individual pictured. No arrests have been made at this stage. Anyone who has information that could help police should call 101 ref CAD 775/10 Apr. Alternatively tweet @MetCC or to remain 100% anonymous contact the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-haringey-stabbing-white-hart-lane-teen-pub-women-crime-b1005592.html

By Bill McLoughlin

  A man has been left in a critical condition following a fight, the Met Police has said. Appealing for information, the Met said they were called to Junction Mews, W2 at 6.30pm on Saturday evening. They were called to reports “of a group of people fighting with knives”, the force said. After attending the scene, a 28-year-old male was found with stab wounds. 

  He was treated by paramedics and taken to hospital where he remains in a critical condition. Three men have since been arrested and remain in custody. An urgent investigation into the incident is now underway. Any witnesses who are yet to speak with police and anyone with information can call 101, ref CAD 6533/11Jun. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-stabbing-paddington-junction-mews-crime-met-police-b1005597.html

By Miriam Burrell

   A man has been arrested on suspicion of collecting information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism. The 40-year-old man was stopped by police on Wednesday after he arrived into the UK on a flight from Kosovo to Luton airport. 

  He was investigated by the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command. Then he was arrested and taken to a local Bedfordshire police station. The man has since been released on bail to a date in early July. Officers also carried out a search at a residential property in the Watford area. All searches are now complete and enquiries are ongoing, Met Police said. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/luton-airport-arrest-terrorism-offences-kosovo-b1005202.html

By Sami Quadri  

 A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder following a fatal car accident. Robert Duggan, 60, was found seriously injured on Axe Close road in Luton after police were called to reports of a disturbance on Saturday at 9.05am. He was later pronounced dead at the scene. Bedfordshire Police say a man in his 50s has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in police custody for questioning.

  Detective Inspector Iain Macpherson, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said: “We are continuing to carry out numerous lines of enquiry to establish the circumstances which led up to Mr Duggan’s death, as well as ensuring his family are fully supported.

  “While we have made an arrest in connection to the incident, we are continuing to appeal for anyone with information or who witnessed it to get in touch.” Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101 or report online quoting Operation Just. Alternatively, people can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/luton-axe-close-man-dead-car-accident-london-crime-news-b1005600.html

By Meg Hill

 A 15-year-old boy who died after he was stabbed in Manchester has been named as Jakub Szymanski. A family statement released through Greater Manchester Police said: “Jakub was lovingly known as Kuba to his family and Jakub to his friends. He was always a popular child, making friends wherever he went due to his friendly and chatty nature. “He always spoke his mind, he was mischievous, funny and a cheeky boy. He loved his Xbox and football, supporting Manchester City. “He was like every other teenage boy and was helpful to so many people, even those he just met. To our family, he’s our hero.” 

  The statement comes after a man was arrested in Kent on suspicion of murder. Police said the 44-year-old man, from Manchester, is believed to be known to the victims who also included the teenager’s mother who was injured in the attack. Greater Manchester Police officers were called by colleagues from Northwest Ambulance Service at about 9.30pm on Thursday following the domestic incident in Miles Platting. The 15-year-old was treated at the scene for stab wounds before being taken to hospital where he died around an hour later, the force said. Police said his mother, in her 40s, was treated at the scene for serious stab wounds and is now in a stable condition in hospital.

   Forensics officers have been carrying out investigations (Peter Byrne/PA) / PA Wire Detective Chief Inspector Alicia Smith said: “Last night’s attack has left a community reeling and a family coming to terms with what was an absolutely devastating incident for everyone involved. “A teenage boy who had his whole life ahead of him has tragically lost his life and not only is his mother grieving at the loss of her son, but she is also recovering from what will have been no doubt, hugely traumatic. “Our thoughts remain very much with the family, and we are absolutely committed to establishing what exactly happened last night. “Detectives have been working around the clock since this incident was first reported to us and we’ve now made an arrest which is a huge step forward in getting the family the answers they need. “Our inquiries are on-going, and we would still like to hear from anyone with information, or anyone who may have seen anything. Report it online or via LiveChat at www.gmp.police.uk or alternatively, contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.” 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/11/15-year-old-boy-stabbed-to-death-in-manchester-named-by-police

By Miriam Burrell  

  A murder investigation is underway in Manchester after a 15-year-old boy and his mother were stabbed by an attacker in a “shocking” domestic incident. Emergency services were called to Bednal Avenue, in Miles Platting, at around 9.30pm on Thursday. A 15-year-old boy and his mother - a woman in her 40s - were rushed to hospital after being found with stab wounds. The boy died an hour later while his mother remained in hospital in a stable condition on Friday. 

 The stabbing has been described as “nothing short of devastating” by Detective Chief Inspector Gina Brennand. “A teenage boy has tragically lost his life and a mother is grieving in hospital after also being seriously attacked. “This is a shocking incident for the people of Manchester to wake up to, but I do wish to stress that our enquiries so far suggest this was a contained and domestic-related incident.” Ms Brennand said police are supporting the woman and her family at this “ incredibly distressing” time. She said: “This is a ferocious attack that has seen a teenage boy fatally injured and we are working at a tremendous pace to find the person that did this and to take them off the streets and into custody where we can continue to piece together what we know about this utterly tragic incident.” 

 Greater Manchester Police said the attacker is known to the victims and that this is a domestic incident. He is described as Asian man wearing dark clothing, aged in his mid-40s, with a medium build, and a medium height, police said. He was last seen walking on Sawley Road shortly after the attack took place. Anyone who thinks they have seen the wanted man are warned not to approach him, but to call police. A cordon remains in place in Miles Platting while a scene investigation continues. No arrests have been made. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/manchester-stabbing-knife-attack-teenage-boy-killed-mother-bednal-avenue-miles-platting-b1005368.html

By John Dunne  

  Police have boosted numbers around a south London park where an 18-year-old was stabbed.  Police have launched an investigation after a teenager was stabbed near a south London park. Officers were scrambled to Norbert Park in Lewisham at 9.25pm on Monday 13th June, when they found a victim, 18, with knife wounds. He was taken to a south London hospital where he is being treated for non life threatening injuries. His family have been informed. 

 There have been no arrests and police have imposed a section 60 order on the area around the crime scene which will see more officers and stop and searches. Ben Lindsay tweeted: “Just witnessed the aftermath of this stabbing in Brockley. Heart breaking. Praying the kid pulls through.” A police statement said: “Following this incident a section 60 was authorised for the SE4 area from 22:30hrs on 13 June to 13:30hrs on 14 June.” Anyone with information is asked to call 101 or tweet @MetCC and quote CAD 7451/13June.to remain anonymous contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/teenager-stabbed-lewisham-norbert-park-met-police-london-crime-b1005948.html

By Matt Watts

  A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving after three men died when a van went the wrong way on to a motorway and crashed head-on with a taxi. It happened on the M606 near Chain Bar roundabout in Bradford, West Yorkshire, at around 10.45pm on Monday. West Yorkshire Police referred itself to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) as one of its vehicles was in the vicinity before the Ford Transit van, believed to have been stolen, headed the wrong way off a roundabout and on to the motorway. Those killed were the 28-year-old taxi driver, his customer, aged 49, both of whom died at the scene, and an 18-year-old passenger in the van who was treated in hospital but died of his injuries. 

 A 17-year-old in the van remained in hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries, the force said. The 15-year-old driver was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving but remained in hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries. The IOPC sent investigators to the scene and said evidence indicated the police did not follow the van the wrong way on to the motorway. 

 IOPC regional director Thea Walton said: “This was a tragic incident that has resulted in three people losing their lives. Our thoughts are with all those affected. “We understand this will have caused considerable concern in the community and I would like to reassure people that there will be a thorough, independent investigation to understand exactly what has happened. “We will be in contact with the families as soon as possible to explain our role and how our inquiries will progress.” 

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/boy-arrested-after-three-die-stolen-van-wrong-way-motorway-hits-taxi-m606-bradford-west-yorkshire-b1006068.html

The Met Police's treatment of the pupil has provoked anger Two Met Police officers who conducted a strip-search of a black schoolgirl have been removed from public-facing roles. A safeguarding report found the search of the 15-year-old, known as Child Q, in 2020 was unjustified and racism was "likely" to have been a factor. The girl is suing the Met and her school in Hackney, east London. Hackney Police commander Ch Supt Marcus Barnett, who resisted calls to resign, said the pair had been moved to desk duties, which took place last week. It came in response to repeated questions from the public at an online community meeting about why the officers had not been sacked. Ch Supt Barnett said: "The officers that have conducted the search have been removed from frontline duties and they are working in another part of this BCU [Basic Command Unit], they are not on the frontline duties." The officers were removed from frontline duties on 17 March, a Met spokesperson confirmed, three days after the publication of the damning report from the City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership, and more than 15 months after the 3 December 2020 search.  Protests have been held in east London during the last week Mr Barnett confirmed they had been moved away from operational duties while the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation continued. A member of the public also questioned why the team hosting Wednesday's meeting was made up of three white male police officers. Det Supt Dan Rutland acknowledged that while the panel did not reflect the local community, they were the senior leadership team of Hackney Police. During the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met Police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside. No other adult was present, her parents were not contacted and no drugs were found. She was subjected to what police call an MTIP search, or 'More Thorough search where Intimate Parts are exposed', and the review said she was made to take off her sanitary towel. The Met has admitted the officers' actions were "regrettable" and it "should never have happened". The Department for Education said it was an "unacceptable incident which should not have happened". "We are in touch with the local authority," a spokesperson said. Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Boris Johnson said reports of the strip-search were "deeply distressing and deeply concerning". Media caption, Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: "When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will" On Wednesday, Hackney's mayor Philip Glanville said it was clear the "school leadership has lost the confidence of the school, myself and the community". He said removing the head teacher could be "part of a process" to bring about change. On Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government was taking this matter "extremely seriously". He added the government would wait for the outcome of the IOPC investigation before announcing any changes to police training around strip searches. The IOPC said a report on the incident was being "finalised". The incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, including near the site of Child Q's school. The school has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

Image caption, Protests have been held in east London over the student's treatment

The head teacher of the school where a black pupil was strip-searched should resign, Hackney's mayor says.

A safeguarding report found the search of the girl, 15, known as Child Q, in east London, was unjustified and racism was "likely" to have been a factor.

Child Q is suing the Met Police and her school in Hackney over the incident.

Philip Glanville said it was clear that "school leadership has lost the confidence of the school, myself and the community".

Speaking to BBC Radio London, Hackney's mayor said removing the head teacher could be "part of a process" to bring about change.

"I do think individuals and institutions have the power to heal, to listen, to change, to move on," he added.

In a tweet Hackney's mayor said: "[We] ask that the head teacher should stand down and allow that school and its community the new start it needs to heal from this traumatic experience and by doing so also fully recognise the traumatic impact on Child Q and her family."

During the incident, the girl was taken out of an exam to the school's medical room and strip-searched by two female Met police officers searching for cannabis, while teachers remained outside.

Media caption,

Labour MP Florence Eshalomi: "When my daughter is 15, I hope this issue still isn't happening but I'm worried it will"

No other adult was present, her parents were not contacted and no drugs were found.

Her intimate body parts were exposed and she was made to take off her sanitary towel, according to the review.

Scotland Yard has admitted the officers' actions were "regrettable" and it "should never have happened".

On Monday, policing minister Kit Malthouse said the government is taking this matter "extremely seriously".

He added the government would wait for the outcome of an Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation before announcing any changes to police training around strip searches.

The IOPC said a report on the incident is being "finalised".

The incident has sparked days of protest across Hackney, near the site of Child Q's school.

The school has not responded to repeated requests for comment.

BBC Samantha Booth 16 Mar 2022, 13:41

Ministers must “urgently” revise school search guidance that is overly-focused on discipline as it could “promote poor practice” following a “deeply disturbing” police strip-and-search of a black schoolgirl.

The Metropolitan Police has admitted the “humiliating” search of a girl who “smelled of cannabis”, in the unnamed Hackney secondary school’s medical room in December 2020, “should never have happened”. 

A safeguarding report found the 15-year-old’s intimate body parts were exposed, without an appropriate adult present and “with the knowledge” the child was menstruating. 

The Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review also found racism “was likely to have been an influencing factor” when deciding to undertake a strip search. 

Staff at the ‘good’-rated school should have “been more challenging to the police”, had “insufficient focus” on safeguarding needs about suspected drug use and “deferred” to the police’s authority. 

Warning: this article includes graphic content

Two of the report’s 14 recommendations call for the Department for Education to “review and revise” its 2018 guidance on “searching, screening and confiscation”. They said parts could “run the risk of promoting poor practice”. 

“As framed, its tone is largely about discipline and is likely to lead front-line staff down this path of practice,” the report states.

Girl was not ‘allowed to clean herself’

Teachers told the review they believed the child was “smelling strongly of cannabis” and suspected she might have been carrying drugs, which she denied. 

Nothing was found after search of her bag, blazer, scarf and shoes, but teachers sought advice from the Safer Schools Police Officer who was not on site because of Covid restrictions. 

The officer recommended the school call the non-emergency police line and ask for a female officer to attend. When they arrived, the child was pulled out of a mock exam and strip searched, where no drugs were found. 

Her family said she was “made to bend over, spread her legs, use her hand to spread her buttocks cheek whilst coughing”. They say the child had to take her sanitary towel off and put the same one back on “because they would not allow her” to use the bathroom to “clean herself”. 

Her mum added the incident “was not treated as a safeguarding issue” but as a criminal one, adding her daughter is a “changed person”.

Guidance ‘runs risk of poor practice’

The review found that it is “unlikely” the school was informed by the police officers of their intention to strip search the child. 

The panel said DfE’s guidance on searching children could be “strengthened by including much strong reference to the primary need to safeguard children”.

They say it “worryingly” contains “outdated terminology” that should be “urgently corrected”, such as “child pornography”. 

There was also “little thought” given to the importance of contacting a family member. The panel said the guidance is “light on the inclusion of parental consent as an issue of importance”. 

While the panel agreed schools are not required to inform parents before a search takes place, the statement that “no legal requirement” to keep a record of the search is “permissive” and “runs the risk of promoting poor practice”. 

DfE guidance says schools “should” inform parents where illegal substances are found, but there “is no legal requirement to do so”. But the panel said this risks “schools not doing anything”. 

“In Child Q’s case, she was the one who had to tell her mother she had been searched by the school and stripped searched by the police. In the opinion of the review, this ‘legally permissible practice’ is not good practice.” 

An anonymous staff member is quoted in the report saying: “In hindsight I put my trust in the law; I know now that I need to understand the law better.” 

They added: “This is the hardest thing that we’ve had to go through and for anyone to think
that the school might be complicit is very stressful and difficult to deal with.”

London mayor ‘extremely concerned’

Cllr Anntoinette Bramble, Hackney’s deputy mayor, and mayor Philip Glanville, said the “lack of challenge by school toward police” was one aspects that “appalled” them. 

They said the governing board undertook an investigation “in order to understand how this situation was allowed to occurred including why school staff did not feel empowered to challenge the actions by the police” 

“As a result the school has conducted reviews, including of roles and responsibilities in working with the police and an external evaluation of safeguarding.” 

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, said the case was “shocking and deeply disturbing”, adding: “No child should ever have to face a situation like this.” 

Detective superintendent Dan Rutland, of the Met’s central east command, said this “should never have happened. It is truly regrettable and on behalf of the Met Police I would like to apologise to the child concerned, her family and the wider community.”

The DfE has been approached for comment.

By Hazel Shearing
Education correspondent

IMAGE SOURCE,ROCHELLE CLARKE

Image caption,

Rochelle Clarke says it makes a difference for children to see governors who "look like them" at school events

Rochelle Clarke was nervous when she pulled up a chair among a group of white priests, who were mostly in their 60s and 70s. She was 30 at the time, and this was her first meeting as a governor in a school in east London, not far from where she grew up.

"I've got very big hair and a very big personality. I'm black and I'm short and I look very young," she says. "I'm not always taken seriously at first glance."

Rochelle's experience is not out of the ordinary, according to a new report first seen by the BBC.

Almost all (90%) of the 4,000 governors who responded to a questionnaire by resource provider GovernorHub were white. More than half (57%) were over the age of 55.

The questionnaire asked a small fraction of England's total number of school governors, which is thought to be more than 200,000. And the statistics do not reflect the make-up of every board.

However, governors who have spoken to the BBC, the National Governance Association (NGA), and the Department for Education (DfE) agree there is a need to improve diversity.

Governors' responsibilities include picking head teachers, making sure school money is well spent, and sitting on panels about exclusions and complaints.

Rochelle, now 35 and working for Tower Hamlets council, works with schools to make sure boards are inclusive - something the government says it is also trying to do.

"If we have 12 middle-aged white men around the table with a degree, do we have diversity of thought? Probably not," says Rochelle - adding that people like builders, who may not have gone to university, will make valuable contributions to decisions about school construction works, for example.

• School apologises for strip-search      of schoolgirl
• The      black children wrongly sent to 'special' schools

Sometimes she finds herself challenging boards who claim they have been unable to recruit people from ethnic minorities, even though they make up most of the borough's population.

But she also sees positive changes when her work pays off. One parent governor recently told her she was able to convince the school to be able to teach black history all year around, rather than just in Black History Month.

"That's a really difficult thing to do. But if you're not on the board, as a governor, you are not able to make those positive changes," she says.

Often governors act as links between schools and their local communities.

Nis Bandara, 31, leads the board of governors at a primary school in Manchester, where about 90% of the children speak English as an additional language. Shortly before speaking to the BBC, her board had been discussing contacting parents in different languages.

The head teacher at Nis Bandara's school has tried to make the governing board inclusive

Nis's board is younger and more ethnically diverse than most. She didn't think this was unusual until she joined governors from other boards on a training course, and realised she was the only person from an ethnic minority.

"Most people are retired ex-teachers or from a school background. But a good governor can come from any walk of life," she says.

"I'm not saying at all that a good governor has to be young or ethnically diverse, but I think the open-mindedness that they can come from any background has to be the first start."

Olivia Hinds, 28, became a governor at a school in Birmingham five years ago. She is actively trying to recruit younger people, as she feels she has been able to relate better to students because of her age.

Olivia Hinds says she "almost brings the student voice" to meetings

"If you haven't sat an exam in the last 30 or 40 years it may be harder for you to understand what students today are going through," she says.

"When they talk to me I don't need to find a translator to understand what they're saying, in terms of the language they use or the references they make."

Olivia, who co-hosts a podcast to raise awareness of governance, says she has seen younger governors help schools put out communications on social media, rather than in long letters, to engage a generation of parents who are used to getting their information online.

• Teachers urged not to read out      racist slur in books
• Why are some books being banned in      US?

She says being a governor is a great way for young people to build up their skills without needing former experience, because anyone who has gone to school in the 21st Century "are the experience".

Philip Drew, 62, is on a mission to make his board at a boys' grammar school in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, more inclusive.

Philip Drew says it's important to consider class in recruitment, as he thinks grammar schools should stand for social mobility

He says he recruits first and foremost for skills, but also believes in "the power of diversity" when it comes to age, gender, race, sexuality and class.

"If you put different opinions and different experiences and different perspectives in the room, you will get a better decision," he says.

Philip has taken active steps to get there, such as asking people to step down after their four-year term and introducing "associate members" of the board who contribute, but don't have to take on full governor responsibilities.

This way, he hopes to reach people who wouldn't normally consider being a governor, and says he has managed to involve some "who otherwise I think we might have lost".

Neil Collins, founder of GovernorHub, says many people do not know what governors do, which makes recruitment harder.

The government has been made aware of the issue previously - including in previous NGA reports - and Mr Collins has called on the DfE to run an awareness campaign.

"We will struggle to attract the people we need and want to recruit if governance remains hidden to much of society," he told the BBC.

"Diverse boards lead to better decision-making in the interests of the whole school or trust community. This lack of awareness is quite literally holding schools back."

The NGA, which has about 65,000 members, welcomed the report and said change "has been frustratingly slow".

Emma Knights, its chief executive, said: "Without the participation of more people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and young people, governing boards are missing out on talent, passion and the range of perspectives needed for good governance," she said.

A DfE spokesman said it was investing in the recruitment of school governors and increasing diversity in governing bodies.

He said almost one in five governors placed through Inspiring Governance - a DfE-funded programme to help boards recruit skilled people - were from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background.

"We expect governing boards to regularly consider whether they have the right diversity of people to reflect the communities they serve and secure the best outcomes for all their students," he added.

Fiona Simpson
Monday, March 21, 2022

The strip-search of a 15-year-old girl in Hackney has prompted calls for the placement of more youth workers in schools.

Hundreds of campaigners joined a rally in Hackney. Picture: Diane Abbott MP/Twitter

The girl, known as Child Q, was wrongly accused of carrying drugs after teachers claimed to smell cannabis during an exam and was strip-searched by police while on her period, a safeguarding review into the incident states.

The review, carried out by the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership concluded that Child Q should never have been strip-searched.

It found an absence of a safeguarding-first approach in the practice of teachers and police officers involved in the search.

It states that racism was likely to be an “influencing factor” in the girl’s ordeal.

Hundreds of campaigners gathered outside Hackney Town Hall on Sunday (20 March) in support of Child Q.

Among them were politicians, representatives of teaching unions and youth work organisations.

Caroline Russell, London Assembly Member for the Green Party, shared images from the rally, writing on Twitter that children “need youth workers not police officers in our schools”.

Recent research from the YMCA finds that youth services have faced £1bn of cuts over the last decade.

Voyage youth, which works with young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds in London, the Fawcett Society which works with women and girls and the Women’s Equality Party in Hackney were among organisations to back the event.

In a tweet, Voyage Youth said that offers of support for schools in the capital from charities supporting young black people in Hackney "had been ignored".

Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, wrote on Twitter: “Huge turnout today at Hackney Town Hall for #ChildQ

“What happened to her was abominable. She was subjected to sexual assault in her school. The Met Police are out of control and the government are incapable or unwilling to do anything about it.”

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), also shared images from the event.

A statement from the NEU said: “Child Q local safeguarding practice review clearly identified racist treatment by police, and misogynistic and humiliating behaviour. Students must be treated with dignity and respect at all times. Our sympathy and solidarity to her and her family.”

Hackney’s safeguarding report, which was published last week, states that no appropriate adult was in attendance during the search with teachers remaining outside the room while the girl was searched in 2020.

Her mother was not contacted in advance of the search which left the girl so distressed she was referred for mental health support by her GP.

A joint statement from Anntoinette Bramble, deputy mayor and cabinet member for children's services at Hackney, and Philip Glanville, the Mayor of Hackney, said that “all aspects of this review have appalled us”.

“The decision by police officers to strip-search a child in her school; the lack of challenge by the school toward police; the absence of requirements of police to seek parental consent in the strip-search of a child.

“The report concluded that racism was likely an ‘influencing factor’ in the strip-search, and the girl – a black child – was subjected to ‘adultification’ bias – where black and global majority children are held to adult standards, but their white peers are less likely to be,” the statement added.

The Met Police has apologised, with Scotland Yard saying its officers' actions were "regrettable" and "it should never have happened".

Just For Kids Law, which has supported Child Q during the review into the incident, said Child Q has launched civil proceedings against the Metropolitan Police and her school.

Florence Cole, an education and community care solicitor at Just for Kids Law who has worked with Child Q throughout the case, added: “No child should be subjected to such an ordeal, and it is hoped that the school will reflect and consider the detrimental effects and negative impact that adultification, disproportionate sanctioning and the over-policing of black children has on their emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing, particularly in light of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership report and its findings.

“All children should feel safe in schools and parents should feel reassured that their children will be kept safe; and that the correct policies, practice, and procedures are followed.

“This is an appalling, shocking case which illustrates wider problems in schools and communities about the treatment of black children which unfortunately is systemic; and the lack of safeguarding and the failure to recognise the ripple effects of trauma that follows, long after such an ordeal.

“As the government sets guidance for schools, we strongly urge it to learn from the failings in this case.”

Fiona Simpson
Thursday, March 17, 2022

The government has set out its long-term vision to tackle racial disparities in the UK with a focus on health services, education, and the youth justice system.

The government has committed to ensuring schools teach an inclusive curriculum. Picture: Adobe Stock

More than 70 measures are set out in the Inclusive Britain plan, many of which include improving outcomes for children and young people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds.

The plan includes a government commitment to stop using “aggregated and unhelpful terms such as BAME, to better focus on understanding disparities and outcomes for specific ethnic groups”.

It was created in response to the Black Lives Matter protests across Britain in 2020 with some new measures set to start next month. 

Existing programmes targeting young people at risk of violence and exploitation are also noted in the plan.

Measures included in the report focused on children and young people include:

Early years

• A new maternity disparities taskforce will be set up to improve maternal health outcomes for ethnic minority women.

Education

• The Department for Education will carry out an analysis in early 2022 to understand pupil attainment and investigate whether there are any specific findings and implications for different ethnic groups to tackle disparities.
• The DfE will take action to improve the quality of education outside mainstream schools including in alternative provision in a bid to improve outcomes for children at risk of being excluded from school. These proposals are part of the forthcoming schools white paper and the SEND (special educational needs and disability) review set to be announced in the coming weeks, the report notes.
• Measures to improve educational outcomes for minoritised groups include the launch of a £30m, three-year programme to set up new SAFE (Support, Attend, Fulfil and Exceed) taskforces led by mainstream schools to deliver evidence-based interventions for those most at risk of becoming involved in serious violent crime. 
• A £15m investment in a two-year programme to pilot the impact of placing full-time specialists in alternative provision in the top 22 serious violence hotspots has also been pledged.
• The DfE plans to “phase in” an extended school day, prioritising disadvantaged areas to provide pupils with the opportunity to engage in physical and cultural activities.
• The government has committed to ensuring all schools are teaching an inclusive curriculum.
• The DfE will, in collaboration with the Equality Hub, work with leading schools to help them create a resource on pupil hairstyles and uniform policy. 

Health

• A new office will be established to target health disparities in the UK, focusing on research, communications and expertise to reduce health inequalities across all groups, including children and young people.

Social care

• The children’s commissioner for England will undertake a review to investigate and take action to address the underlying issues facing families from minoritised backgrounds beginning in April 2022.
• The DfE will launch a campaign to boost adoption numbers among children from ethnic minorities.

Youth justice

• The plan commits to diverting young people away from the criminal justice system by tackling the disproportionate criminalisation of young adults, “who are often from ethnic minority or deprived backgrounds”. Measures suggested to meet this aim include improved access to existing drug and violence diversion schemes.
• The plan also says that the government will ensure that young people from ethnic minorities receive the legal advice they need when in police custody.

Youth unemployment

• Plans are in place to create a targeted apprenticeships campaign to inform young people from ethnic minority backgrounds, facing discrimination or disadvantage, of the full range of career pathways open to them and encourage them to take up apprenticeships in growth sectors.

The report comes as research from a raft of social care organisations finds that one in 10 social workers has considered leaving their role due to racism while a serious case review by Hackney Council found that racism was a factor in the strip-search of a 15-year-old girl at a school in east London by two police officers.

For fair dealing purposes -reviewing or reporting on the news As reported on Mail on Line Friday 7th January 2022 

An article By ISABELLA NIKOLIC FOR MAILONLINE 31 December 2021

Let us call them by their names  

To honour their memory. And in condolences to and respect for their families

May they all rest in peace 

Top row left to right: Anas Mezenner, 17, Hani Solomon, 18, Drekwon Patterson, 16, Tai Jordan 'Donnell, 19, Ahmed Beker , 19, Camron Smith, 16, Damarie Omare Roye, 16, Mazaza Owusu-Mensah, 18, Ezra Okobia, 14, (not pictured),  Hussain Chaudhry, 18. 

Second row left to right: Levi Ernest-Morrison, 17, Fares Maatou, 14, Alex Ajanaku, 18, (not pictured) Abubakkar Jah, 18, Tamim Ian Habimana, 15, Jermaine Cools, 14, Tashawn Watt, 19, Hazrat Wali, 18, Rishmeet Singh, 16, Romario Opia, 15. 

Bottom row left to right: Jalan Woods-Bell, 15, Keane Flynn-Harling, 16, Kamran Khalid, 18, Taylor Cox, 19, 

Denardo Samuels-Brooks, 17, Stelios Averkiou, 16, (not pictured) Daniel Laskos, 16, Nikolay Vandev, 19, Unnamed boy, 15, Unnamed boy, 16

Dame Cressida wrote: ‘This is serious and it is urgent. To lose public consent would be unthinkable. Action is needed now’

By Sami Quadri Evening Standard

Dame Cressida Dick has told Metropolitan Police officers “enough is enough” as she admitted its reputation has been tarnished by “poor conduct and nasty and inappropriate behaviour”.

A damning report by the IOPC police watchdog on Tuesday revealed shocking messages exchanged between officers primarily at Charing Cross police station in which they joked about rape and hitting their partners.

Amid the fallout from the controversy, the Sunday Telegraph revealed the embattled Scotland Yard chief has sent a letter to 43,000 officers and staff telling them the force’s reputation has been damaged by repeated “poor conduct and nasty and inappropriate behaviour”.

She said prejudice, racism, homophobia and sexism will not be tolerated, adding: “If this is you I have a message: the Met does not want you. Leave now."

Dame Cressida admitted that the force’s reputation has been damaged and public confidence has fallen.

She said: “This is serious and it is urgent. To lose public consent would be unthinkable. Action is needed now. Enough is enough.”

The IOPC gave the Met 15 recommendations to totally overhaul its culture and process after the disturbing messages came to light, including one in which a male officer told a female officer: “I would happily rape you.”

Dame Louise Casey has been commissioned to conduct a review of the Met’s processes after the horrific murder of Sarah Everard, 33, by serving police officer Wayne Couzens in March last year.

A non-statutory public inquiry into whether police officials missed red flags about Couzens before the murder is also being led by Dame Elish Angiolini QC.

Sadiq Khan earlier this week put Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick “on notice” in a “furious” meeting about the force’s “return to the bad days” of the 1970s and 80s.

He is believed to have urged her to come up with a plan “to drive out the culture of racism, homophobia, bullying and misogyny” in its ranks.

By Anthony France@NewsFrenchTony - Daily Mail

The mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has claimed Scotland Yard has “no intention” of changing despite a damning report exposing a culture of racism, sexism, bullying and homophobia.

Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick was put “on notice” this week by Mayor Sadiq Khan following the exposure of highly offensive WhatsApp messages sent by officers from a now disbanded team based at Charing Cross.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct report made a series of recommendations and warned: “We believe these incidents are not isolated or simply the behaviour of a few ‘bad apples’.”

Baroness Lawrence told the Standard: “The Met has a record of saying they are sorry when their wrongdoing comes to light.

“It is easy to say sorry but then it is ‘business as usual’. Unless they are sanctioned and those involved are named and shamed their behaviour will carry on. The public have a right to know who is policing them and that they are safe and able to trust the police at all times.”

Her 18-year-old son Stephen was murdered in Eltham in 1993. The original police investigation was hindered from the start amid allegations of racism and corruption. The 1999 Macpherson report into his killing labelled the force “institutionally racist” and made a number of recommendations.

Baroness Lawrence added: “The fact that not all of the recommendations from the Macpherson report have been implemented shows that the Met has no intention of reforming itself.”

Mr Khan has warned Dame Cressida she is one scandal away from being ousted during a “frank” discussion that lasted over 90 minutes on Wednesday.

He was unimpressed by the Met’s plans to address the massive loss of public confidence and root out rogue officers. A spokesman for Mr Khan said: “He made clear how angry he is with a return to the bad days of the Met of his childhood in the Seventies and Eighties, and that neither he nor Londoners will put up with this.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel, who has joint responsibility for appointing the Met commissioner, told MPs on Wednesday she has concerns about leadership failures at the Yard which extended to “all levels”.

The Met has apologised for the conduct of its officers at Charing Cross.

The IOPC took the unusual step of publishing the graphic messages from its report into the behaviour of officers at Charing Cross police station. It found they routinely exchanged sexualised, violent, and discriminatory messages that they later defended as “banter”.

Officers referred to a colleague as “mcrapey raperson” and casual references made about domestic violence included an officer saying he had “backhanded” his partner.

One boasted about beating up his girlfriend, saying: “It makes them love you more.” Others made jokes about Auschwitz, disabled and gay people.

A review of culture and standards in the Met is currently being carried out by Baroness Louise Casey.

Public confidence in the Met was already battered in the aftermath of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Met officer Wayne Couzens last March.

Baroness Lawrence’s intervention came after Mina Smallman, the mother of two murdered sisters whose dead bodies were photographed and shared by policemen guarding the scene, asked how many times Dame Cressida would apologise before she “exposed the rot”.

By Anthony France @NewsFrenchTony Evening Standard

Nearly half of London’s murder victims last year were black, according to new figures.

As teenage killings hit a post-war record, black Londoners are three times more likely than any other ethnic group to be violently killed.

Scotland Yard chief Dame Cressida Dick warned in April the data was “hugely out of proportion” with the capital’s population.

Met police figures obtained by the Standard reveal the force launched 131 killing investigations in 2021, 24 of which were domestic crimes.

Of the 107 non-domestic murders, 50 victims were black, around 47 per cent, and 40 white (37 per cent). It means London’s black residents are more likely to be killed in street violence than other communities, despite making up only 13 per cent of the city’s population.

Zaian Aimable-Lina, 15, was one of two teenagers stabbed to death within an hour on December 30, making 2021 the bloodiest year on record for teenage killings in the capital as the toll hit 30. Zaian suffered three stab wounds in an “unprovoked” attack in Croydon. A youth, also 15, accused of murder has been remanded to appear before an Old Bailey judge on March 24.

Met Commander Alex Murray said murders are not spread evenly, either geographically, or by age or ethnicity.

Intelligence suggests perpetrators often have an absence of protective factors — whether that’s families, communities or larger society, helping them deal more effectively with stressful events or eliminate risk.

Gang members are also getting younger, with evidence that the peak age for carrying knives has reduced to just 15.

Bobby Kasanga, 35, who founded Hackney Wick FC in 2015 to steer young men and women away from gangs, said: “Year after year, the figures become more disheartening. But we have to create further interventions to save those who want to be saved. There might have been 30 teenagers killed last year but hundreds of thousands weren’t targeted, got into education, work experience and jobs.”

This month the Met arrested 2,048 suspects for violence during an operation until January 9.

By  Sami Quadri Evening Standard

Two teenagers who were convicted of robbing and killing a law student after they went to his east London home to steal designer jackets have been jailed.

Hussain Chaudhry, 18, was fatally stabbed in front of his family who tried to fight off the thugs attacking him.

Marvin Ward, 19, and Alex Morris, 18, both from Ilford, were found guilty of manslaughter on December 17 following a seven-week trial at Wood Green Crown Court.

Morris was also found guilty of possession of a machete in a public place.

They were both also found guilty of maliciously wounding Hussain’s mother and brother during the incident in Walthamstow.

Both men were sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for manslaughter, 13 years’ for robbery and two years’ imprisonment each for two counts of GBH.

Anthony Nguyen, 18, from Belvedere, was found guilty of assisting an offender.

He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and will be subject to a 12-month supervision order on his release.

All three were sentenced at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday, February 4.

The court heard that Ward and Morris had agreed to meet Hussain on March 17 at his home address in Lea Bridge Road to buy a designer jacket that he had advertised for sale on social media.

They went inside Hussain’s home after Morris asked if he had a jacket in a smaller size.

After initially appearing willing to pay for the jacket, Ward and Morris then got out knives and threatened Hussain.

Ward ordered a cab to pick them up while Morris demanded to go upstairs into the student’s room.

Morris began searching the home for more jackets while Ward held Hussain at knifepoint in the family sitting room.

Hussain heard his mother arriving home and went to protect her from the intruders.

His two brothers came out of their rooms and managed to detain Morris.

A fight spilled into the street where members of the Chaudhry household were trying to detain Ward who had attempted to escape the scene with the jacket in a waiting taxi.

Hussain suffered a fatal stab injury to his neck in the fight.

His mother sustained a serious injury to her thumb and his brother an injury to his hand.

Ward fled the scene while Morris escaped from an upstairs window of the property and then ran away.

Emergency services were scrambled to the scene and an off-duty doctor also tried to save the student.

However, he died at the scene a short time later.

Homicide detectives from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command identified Ward and Morris through CCTV footage they seized.

Ward was arrested on March 19 and Morris two days later.

Hussain’s family said in a statement: "We are pleased that the jury has returned guilty verdicts for the cowardly robbers who unlawfully killed our beloved Hussain and wounded his mother and brother during their attempt to rob our family home.

"Ultimate justice is from God Almighty and whilst nothing will ease the pain of losing Hussain, we are grateful that those responsible have been caught and convicted of his unlawful killing and robbery.

"These are cowardly robbers and killers who draw a false sense of strength and arrogance from carrying knives. However, on 17 March 2021 they were confronted with real strength and true courage when they failed to intimidate Hussain - who fought back alongside his brothers and friends to protect his mother, home and family.

"…Hussain lives on through his legacy and this will continue as long as we all uphold the values that he embodied - Love, Honour and Bravery.

"With thanks again to all from the family of Hussain."

Inspector Mike Stubbins, the senior officer in the case, said: “Hussain’s death was a tragedy that shocked the community to its core. His life was tragically cut short due to the actions of two young men the same age as him.

“This case demonstrates the devastating consequences of arming yourself with a knife in order to commit crime.

“Hussain’s family, who tried to defend and protect him on the day, have not only been left with physical scars, but face the huge emotional and psychological burden of trying to come to terms with his death.

“I would like to pay tribute to the family and all the witnesses who have attended court to ensure that Hussain’s killers are brought to justice.”

Fiona Simpson 

Thursday, January 27, 2022

The youth justice system is “categorically failing on every count to halt the overrepresentation of black children”, the chair of the Youth Justice Board (YJB) has said.

Keith Fraser has called for more support for 'black children to live crime-free lives'. 

Keith Fraser has called for more support for 'black children to live crime-free lives'. 

Black children in England and Wales are more likely to be stopped and searched, arrested, held on remand, sentenced to custody and to go on to commit another offence within a year, latest statistics, published by the YJB and Ministry of Justice reveal.

Black children account for 29 per cent of the youth custody population, an increase of 18 per cent compared with a decade ago, the report shows.

YJB chair Keith Fraser: We need to talk about Black Lives Matter more

Despite black children making up just four per cent of the 10- to 17-year-old population in England and Wales, they were involved in 18 per cent of stop and searches carried out on the age group in the year ending March 2021 and 15 per cent of arrests.

Keith Fraser describes the statistics as “shocking” saying “the disparity continues when we look at reoffending rates, which for black children is 42.4 per cent compared to a rate of 35.3 per cent for white children”.

“So, once they are in the justice system, we are still disproportionately failing to give black children the support they need to live crime-free lives,” he adds, noting that the figures show that children with a mixed ethnicity are also over-represented in most stages of the system including stop and search, arrests, cautions and sentences and custody.

Young black people also account for 12 per cent of children cautioned or sentenced and 34 per cent of children in custody on remand.

Fraser said: “The youth justice system is categorically failing on every count to halt the overrepresentation of black children.”

Meanwhile, the figures highlight a 20 per cent drop-in first-time entrants to the youth justice system in the year to March 2021, a 19 per cent drop in arrests and a 28 per cent drop in the number of children in custody.

Reoffending rates also fell by 3.8 percentage points during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, the figures show.

However, Fraser notes that “our challenge now is to maintain this as we come out of the pandemic”.

He added that the figures must be viewed with “some caution” due to the impact of the pandemic on courts and policing. 

The time between an offence taking place and the end of the court process for young people increased by 27 per cent in 2020/21 compared with the previous year, figures show.

“However, it is clear that many of the long-term trends we hoped to see continue through the pandemic, have continued. We continued to see falls in the number of children entering the justice system, the number of children who received a caution or sentence, reoffending rates have decreased again, and the youth custody population is at an all time low,” Fraser added.

By Daniel Keane Evening Standard 

If you have seen Kameron or have any information about his whereabouts then call 101 and quote CAD 5391/26JAN. In an emergency or for an immediate sighting of Kameron Dial 999.

The Met Police are appealing for information to help find a missing teenage boy from Barnet.

Kameron Parchment, 14, was last seen by a friend on the 134 bus at around 5pm on Tuesday heading towards North Finchley.

He was described as wearing black trousers, a white Nike top and black jumper.

Kameron has some knowledge of the Hornsey and Wood Green areas and may have been in the Friern Barnet and Finchley areas, police said.

Despite appeals on social media, Kameron has not been heard from or seen since January 26.

Kameron’s mum said: “I am absolutely worried sick about Kameron. It is really out of character for him. All I want is for him to contact me, just so I know he is alright.

“Kameron, if you a reading this, please, please get in touch. We all love you very much, we just want to know you’re safe.”

Detective Inspector Jon Moseling of the North West Command Unit which covers Barnet said: “Kameron has been missing for a significant period of time and the longer this goes on, the more concerning it is. I would appeal to anyone who has information about Kameron’s whereabouts to get in touch immediately.

“At the heart of this is a young boy whose family are in shock about him going missing – if you can help us find their son and brother, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

Kameron has some knowledge of the Hornsey and Wood Green areas and may have been in the Friern Barnet and Finchley areas, police said.

Despite appeals on social media, Kameron has not been heard from or seen since January 26.

Kameron’s mum said: “I am absolutely worried sick about Kameron. It is really out of character for him. All I want is for him to contact me, just so I know he is alright.

“Kameron, if you a reading this, please, please get in touch. We all love you very much, we just want to know you’re safe.”

Detective Inspector Jon Moseling of the North West Command Unit which covers Barnet said: “Kameron has been missing for a significant period of time and the longer this goes on, the more concerning it is. I would appeal to anyone who has information about Kameron’s whereabouts to get in touch immediately.

“At the heart of this is a young boy whose family are in shock about him going missing – if you can help us find their son and brother, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

Metropolitan Police

By Elly BlakeJohn Dunne@jhdunne Evening Standard

26 January 2022

A 15-year-old boy is “extremely lucky to be alive” after being stabbed in a supermarket car park in Finsbury Park.

Police were called to reports of a disturbance involving a group of people in Sainsbury’s carpark on Williamson Road, N4, on Monday at 4.32pm.

Witnesses described how 30 teenagers from two rival groups clashed with one victim slashed with a machete as customers with children looked on in horror.

A teenager was found with serious injuries and taken to hospital by the London Ambulance Service, where he remains in a serious but stable condition.

A Sainsbury’s worker said: “There were about 30 boys of all races in the car park.

“They were most probably from local schools. It seemed peaceful at first but then was a fight and I saw a machete the next thing a boy was laying  on the ground with a deep slash wound to his kneecap and an injury which appeared to be on his side.

“Staff and customers were looking on in horror. Some of the customers had young children with them seeing things they should not see.

“We alerted the police and customers ran out to try to help the boy. It was very distressing for everyone.”

A local resident whose flat overlooks the car park said: “There was shouting and then boys legging it all over the car park.

“I heard a scream of pain followed by ‘help’.

“There was a boy laying down and then a lot of them scattered.

“The police and ambulances were on the scene quickly and the boy in the ground looked badly injured.

“We shop there all the time it really hurts us as a community.”

A mother of three who was in the store when the stabbing took place said she had to shield her children as the violence flared.

The woman, 36, who did not want to be named, said: “There was loads of shouting and swearing outside then someone shouted, ‘he’s been stabbed’. A lot of customers went to the window at the front of the shop to see what was happening, but I stood in front of my kids to shield them.

“Children should not be exposed to things like this. This was in a supermarket in London in the daytime. Where is safe now in London?”

A police cordon remains in place around the car park as forensic officers and detectives continue to scour the scene for clues.

Medical packs used by paramedics battling to save the life of the victim lay strewn on the ground.

The incident was captured on CCTV footage covering the car park.

Officers are appealing for witnesses who may have seen the attack to come forward.

Detective Inspector Paul Ridley, who is leading the investigation, said: “This was a violent attack in the middle of a busy supermarket carpark.

“The young victim is extremely lucky to be alive.

“I know that the area was bustling with people at the time, and I need these people to come forward to my investigation team.

“If you witnessed the disturbance or are in possession of any dashcam footage which may have captured the events I really need to hear from you as a priority. I assure you that all information will be acted upon.”

A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and attempted robbery. He remains in custody.

Anyone with information is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference CAD 4792/24Jan. To remain anonymous, contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

By John Dunne  @jhdunne | Barney Davis @BarneyDavisES Evening Standard

https://youtu.be/mwnV4dY3zIA

Shocking footage filmed by a terrified bus passenger shows two boys in a running knife battle on a bus in south London in rush hour.

Horrified commuters and school children looked on as one boy with an 8 inch blade slashes at another who appears to defending himself with a metal pole.

The incident happened at 4.40pm on Thursday on the top deck of the 109 bus at Streatham Hill on a service heading to Brixton.

One of the passengers filmed part of the fight before backing off in fear as the pair fought along the bus corridor.

The man who filmed the fight which he posted on twitter wrote: “I filmed for three seconds before they came further back. They didn’t say anything to anyone else but everyone ran behind me.”

The fight went on for five minutes with the boys, who look to be young teenagers, openly brandishing their weapons in front of passengers.

Someone appears to shout “ hey scumbag” as they are attacking each other.

Both boys are wearing face coverings and puffa jackets as the goad each other running up and down the deck of the bus.

Police are investigating and will request CCTV footage from the bus company as part of their inquiries.

A police spokesman said: “Police were called at 16:41hrs on Thursday, 3 February to reports of a fight on board a bus in the area of Telford Avenue, SW2.

“Officers attended but all of those involved had fled prior to their arrival. There were no reported injuries.“ There have been no arrests and enquiries continue.”

Go to article in full 

Met Police must be overhauled, damning IOPC report finds

The report found Met Police officers joked about rape and sent racist and homophobic messages as ‘banter’

By Josh Salisbury Evening Standards

Scotland Yard must overhaul its culture of sexism, racism, bullying and homophobia after a damning report uncovered officers’ disturbing ‘jokes’ about rape.

The police watchdog issued the force with 15 recommendations after an investigation into misconduct at Charing Cross Police Station.

Operation Hotton was sparked in March 2018 and found text and WhatsApp messages between officers which were highly sexualised, discriminatory, or referred to violence, which officers often defended as ‘banter’.

They included one sent by a male officer to a female colleague saying: “I would happily rape you”.

The conclusions are particularly damning in the aftermath of the kidnap, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard, 33, by Met firearms officer Wayne Couzens last March.

Although the team at Charing Cross has since disbanded, the Independent Office for Police Conduct said it believed “these incidents are not isolated or simply the behaviour of a few bad apples”.

Officers joked about attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders.

The IOPC found repeated mocking of non-Christian religions, the Black Lives Matter movement, people with disabilities, racism, and homophobia.

Racist texts were also sent about Muslim “fanatics”, “Somalian rats”, and others which made reference to Auschwitz.

A police officer forwarded a colleague an image of a black man wearing a white shirt. His colleague asked, “What’s good about it I don’t get it lol.” He replied, “Ignore the robber…I like the shirt.”

There were numerous messages about rape.

A message that when unchallenged between two officers started with Officer 1 saying: “You ever slapped your missus?”

“It makes them love you more. Seriously since I did that she won’t leave me alone. Now I know why these daft c**** are getting murdered by their spastic boyfriends. "Knock a bird about and she will love you. Human nature. They are biologically programmed to like that s***.”

The Met said it had already taken a number of steps and that an independent review by Baroness Louise Casey is being conducted into its culture and ethics.

Fourteen police officers were investigated after the comments came to light, said the IOPC. Two officers were dismissed for gross misconduct and barred from policing.

One resigned prior to the hearings.

Regional Director Sal Naseem said: “The behaviour we uncovered was disgraceful and fell well below the standards expected of the officers involved.

“While these officers predominantly worked in teams in Westminster, which have since been disbanded, we know from other recent cases that these issues are not isolated or historic.”

Mr Naseem praised officers who came forward, saying that in doing so risked “being ostracised, demeaned or told to get another job.”

The Met apologised for the officers’ behaviour Monday, saying it was “deeply sorry to Londoners and everyone they have failed with their appalling conduct”.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Bas Javid said: “I am angry and disappointed to see officers involved in sharing sexist, racist and discriminatory messages.

“It’s clear we have a lot of work to do to ensure bullying and discrimination does not exist in any part of the Met.”

No 10 said the Government expects the “highest standards of behaviour from our police” following the Independent Office for Police Conduct’s (IOPC) report.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I haven’t had a chance to speak to the Prime Minister but that’s not to say we are not concerned by this.”

He said: “We expect the highest standard of behaviour from our police officers and clearly there’s no place for what has been set out today.”

He said people must “be able to have full confidence the police are there to protect them”.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he was “utterly disgusted” at the behaviour outlined in the report.

“The conduct of these officers was totally unacceptable and what has been revealed by these investigations will only further damage public trust and confidence in the police,” he said.

"It is right that the team concerned has been disbanded and the police officers found to be involved have been dismissed, disciplined or have left the police.

“Anyone found to be responsible for sexism, racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, antisemitism, bullying or harassment does not deserve to wear the Met uniform and must be rooted out.”

Mr Khan added that while he welcomed the IOPC’s findings, more action was needed and that he had been clear with Commissioner Cressida Dick “about the scale of change that's needed to rebuild trust with Londoners”.

Sadiq Khan Opinion The Guardian Feb 12th2022

The London mayor says that people’s confidence in the force must be restored after the wave of recent scandals

Read more: Sadiq Khan pledges to end toxic culture at Met police

Cressida Dick, who last week resigned as Met commissioner, inspects police cadets in Hendon, London, in 2017. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/AP.

We have a longstanding tradition in this country of policing by consent. At the heart of this approach is the recognition that, for policing to be effective, public approval, respect and confidence in the service is paramount. When this trust is eroded, our model of policing, and therefore public safety, is put at risk.

This was at the forefront of my mind when I read the shocking Operation Hotton report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, which exposed sickening overt evidence of racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny among police officers serving at Charing Cross station. Nine of these police officers are still serving with two promoted. Damningly, it concluded that these issues were not isolated or historic.

Sadiq Khan pledges to end toxic culture at Met police and signals showdown with Priti Patel.

Reading this report made me disgusted and extremely angry. It reminded me of the bad old days of the Met from my childhood. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s on a council estate in south London, it was commonplace to hear stories of racist, misogynistic and abusive conduct by police officers.

Trust in the police was at rock bottom in some communities and one of the things I remember being told as a teenager by my dad was: “Don’t make eye contact with the police, don’t give them an excuse”. My brothers and I would routinely cross the road when we saw officers on the beat, simply due to the fear of being unjustly targeted.

I’ve seen and felt the damage that this kind of breakdown in trust can cause. It makes it harder to tackle crime, with victims failing to report crime and witnesses discouraged from coming forward when they see criminal activity. It stops many women reporting rape and sexual harassment. And it leads to community groups becoming less likely to work with the police when they are worried about young people getting involved in gangs.

During my time as mayor, crime has fallen in the capital. We have managed to buck the national trend, with burglary, gun crime and knife crime involving under 25s all down by around a quarter since 2016. But we still have a long way to go and – if we are to continue making progress – then ensuring communities across London have trust and confidence in the police is going to be critical.

This is particularly the case with tackling the senseless knife crime that results in the murder of young Londoners, many just teenagers. Thirty teenagers were killed in the capital last year – every one of them a shocking tragedy. We know the way to reduce this kind of terrible violence is not just through tough enforcement, but by the police working in partnership with families, local communities, charities and others to prevent children from being sucked into gangs and violence in the first place.

The truth is that communities will only act as the eyes and ears of the police, and be active partners in working to prevent crime, if the necessary trust is established.

I’ve seen and felt the damage that this kind of breakdown in trust can cause

That’s one of the main reasons why I’m deeply concerned by how public trust and confidence in London’s police service has been shattered so badly – not just by the Hotton report, but by a succession of serious incidents. These include: the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer; the policing of a peaceful vigil; two officers caught sharing pictures of the murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman; and failings by the Met Police which contributed to the deaths of the final three victims of Stephen Port, with accusations that homophobia within the police impeded the investigation.

It has become crystal clear that there are deep cultural issues within the Met. It’s my job as Mayor to support the police and also to hold the police to account on behalf of Londoners, so it was my duty to act decisively as soon as I concluded that the only way we were going to start seeing the level of change urgently required was with new leadership right at the top of the Met. Londoners need to hear their police service publicly acknowledge the widespread nature of the problem, which is the most important step in starting to rebuild credibility with Londoners, crucial to public safety.

I’d like to thank Dame Cressida Dick again for her years of dedicated service and her role in helping to reduce crime in London over recent years. I will now work closely with the home secretary as we select a new commissioner. And as we start this important process, I make this commitment to Londoners – I will not support the appointment of a new Commissioner unless they can clearly demonstrate that they understand the scale of the cultural problems within the Met and the urgency with which they must be addressed. In short, they need to get it, and they need to have a proper and robust plan to deal with it.

I’m optimistic that we can meet the challenges ahead. There are thousands of decent, dedicated and brave police officers in London who are doing an incredible job. Who understand the crucial link between trust, confidence and public safety. I believe in the Met, and I know it contains many brilliant police officers who share my aspirations for policing in London, and who are keen to play their full part in raising standards, adhering to the values Londoners expect and ensuring the bond with the communities they serve is restored and strengthened.

The London mayor vows to oppose anyone who fails to understand deep problems at beleagured force, in wake of Cressida Dick resignation

‘Never again’: read full      article by Sadiq Khan here

Memories of the ‘bad old days of the Met’ rekindled: Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Mark TownsendHome Affairs Editor & Toby Helm Political Editor Sat 12 Feb 2022 19.25 GMT The Observer Police    

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, today sets the stage for a dramatic showdown with the home secretary, Priti Patel, over who should be the next Metropolitan police commissioner as he vows to oppose anyone who does not understand the deep “cultural problems” within the beleaguered force.

Writing in the Observer, three days after his intervention forced Cressida Dick to abruptly resign, Khan says recent revelations of officers bragging about violence towards women and exchanging racist and Islamophobic messages rekindled personal memories of the “bad old days of the Met” during his own childhood.

Khan says it was common when he was growing up on a south London council estate in the 1970s and 80s to hear “stories of racist, misogynistic and abusive conduct by police officers”.

He adds: “One of the things I remember being told as a teenager by my dad was: ‘Don’t make eye contact with the police, don’t give them an excuse.’ My brothers and I would routinely cross the road when we saw officers on the beat, simply due to the fear of being unjustly targeted.”

While it is the home secretary, Patel, who has the ultimate power to appoint the next commissioner, she can only do so having taken into account the preference of the mayor.

In his article, Khan makes absolutely clear that he will use his right to be involved in the process to ensure the appointment of someone who can guarantee an end to the Met’s toxic culture.

In effect, threatening to veto anyone whom he feels cannot rise to the huge challenge, Khan writes: “I will not support the appointment of a new commissioner unless they can clearly demonstrate that they understand the scale of the cultural problems within the Met and the urgency with which they must be addressed. In short, they need to get it, and they need to have a proper and robust plan to deal with it.”

His threat is likely to further provoke Patel, who is smarting after claiming that Khan did not inform her he was withdrawing support from Dick, a decision that forced her out.

The mayor’s mention of the need to avoid someone who lacks a “robust plan” appears to be a reference to Dick and her proposals to improve the Met, which were handed to Khan less than a week before she resigned.

He considered the proposals distinctly underwhelming, both because of the time they would have taken to deliver and because he thought they were insufficient to change the cultural mindset within elements of the force.

The appointment of the new commissioner is particularly fraught because the force is presiding over the most politically sensitive investigation it has ever undertaken, into a string of lockdown parties in Downing Street.

Yvette Cooper said: ‘No one who is subject to investigation by the police should be involved in appointing senior officers who have to take charge of those investigations.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/the Guardian

This weekend, No 10 confirmed that Boris Johnson had received a questionnaire to complete about his knowledge of and involvement in the gatherings. Many Tory MPs believe that if he is found to have broken lockdown rules and is issued with one or more fixed penalty notices it could spell the end of his premiership.

Opposition parties, fearing that Johnson might try to use the new commissioner’s appointment to delay or influence the Met’s report, last night stepped up demands that he remove himself entirely from the process.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said: “The police always need to operate without fear or favour and be seen to do so. That’s why no one who is subject to investigation by the police should be involved in appointing senior officers who have to take charge of those investigations – and that includes the prime minister. No one is above the law. For the sake of trust and transparency, he needs to recuse himself from any role in the appointment process for the Metropolitan police commissioner while the investigation into Downing Street is continuing.”

Sir Bob Neill, the Tory chair of the justice select committee, said Patel would need to have “very good reasons” to go against Khan’s choice for the next commissioner. “Politically, this could lead to a massive row. Unless she could produce a good reason to go against the mayor’s recommendation, it could even lead to a legal challenge.”

The relationship between Johnson and Patel will be scrutinised in the coming weeks with the home secretary’s political career having relied on his intervention when he kept her in post despite a report accusing her of breaking the ministerial code.

Relations between Khan and Patel are already tense with reports of disagreements over the size of Dick’s payoff and simmering tensions over the way the mayor forced London’s first female police commissioner out.

hitehall sources, however, dismiss claims that Patel was blindsided by Khan, saying the home secretary’s officials were fully aware of the mayor’s concerns over Dick and also knew of last Thursday’s meeting which Khan arranged to discuss the commissioner’s future.

Sources are bemused at the Home Office’s briefings about Patel not being informed, and point out that it makes her look both “weak” and “out of the loop”.

One option being considered is the appointment of an interim commissioner while the search for a permanent chief is launched. Another solution might be to ask Dick to stay on for two months to steer the No 10 party inquiry over the line, a move that would prevent her replacement being contaminated by its findings.

Khan’s full support for the next commissioner is critical because of the intimate working relationship between the mayor and the leader of the force in the capital and the fact that Khan oversees the Met’s budget.

Meanwhile, Labour has urged Patel to instigate fundamental reform of the police to raise standards before the new chief is appointed. Cooper unveiled five key areas for reform, including the urgent inclusion of violence against women and girls in the Home Office’s strategic policing requirement, and the overhaul of training and misconduct proceedings.

Home secretary is understood to be keen on outsider to head London force who could push through reforms.

Home Office is thought to believe someone outside the Metropolitan police would better able to change its culture after the resignation of Cressida Dick. Photograph: PjrNews/Alamy

Rajeev Syal 

Sun 13 Feb 2022 17.26 GMT The Guardian

Could the UK’s most powerful police officer be brought in from outside the force? Or might Priti Patel look even farther afield – to Australia, or even the United States – instead of recruiting from within Scotland Yard?

Reports this weekend claimed that the unexpected resignation of Cressida Dick, the head of the Metropolitan police, has driven the home secretary to look for an outsider to transform the force.

Usually, the commissioner is drawn from the ranks of serving senior officers in the UK, but Home Office officials believe they could look abroad to fill the post.

The Mail on Sunday claimed Patel is minded to recruit an Australian officer, such as Queensland police commissioner Katarina Carroll, who successfully overhauled the force’s troubled fire and emergency services.

Patel wants an outsider who can reform the force’s culture instead of senior officers “inheriting” the job, according to the Sun on Sunday. This could include a high-flying officer from one of the UK’s smaller forces such as Simon Byrne, the chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Sources close to Patel confirmed that there is a loophole that will allow recruitment from abroad. It is “an option”, a source said, but added: “Realistically, it is going to be someone from the UK.”

Former senior officers believe that a list of strong candidates has become increasingly difficult to identify because the job has become more politicised, the nature of crime has changed and London has become more diverse.

Tarique Ghaffur, a former assistant commissioner in the Met who has spent the last five years advising police in the US and the Middle East on recruitment, said choosing a new leader will have to address an “expectation gap” between the politicians, the public and police officers themselves.

“You need a leader who is thoughtful, who can lead a process of change, and who is going to have the political acumen and the gravitas to command support from across the political spectrum, London’s diverse communities and police officers. They will also have to understand the complex changing nature of safety, security and harm across the city. That is a tall order,” he said.

Ghaffur, who was the UK’s highest ranking Muslim police officer until he left the force in 2008, said that the new commissioner will also have to have enough experience to command the respect of the Met’s 33,000 police officers while arguing for a clearout of racist, sexist and homophobic colleagues.

“Once they create the values of what is acceptable and not, the new commissioner will have to be absolutely ruthless in finding and sacking those people who are guilty,” he said.

While Patel holds the power over the appointment of Dame Cressida’s successor, she must take the views of Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor, into account. Their advisers are in touch and are due to speak next week, it is understood.

Khan has already made it plain that he expects to see drawn-up proposals for reforming longstanding “cultural problems”. Last week, the police watchdog found “disgraceful” examples of bullying and sexual harassment at Charing Cross police station in central London.

Met Deputy Commissioner launches scathing attack on Sadiq Khan over Cressida Dick sacking

By Martin Bentham @martinbentham EVENING STANDARD 23-2-2022

Sadiq Khan was on Wednesday accused by the Met’s Deputy Commissioner of ousting Cressida Dick without due process in a dramatic escalation of hostilities between the Mayor and Scotland Yard.

Sir Stephen House said Dame Cressida had been removed contrary to the procedures laid down in legislation with her ousting instead “played out in the media”.

He said he has written to Home Secretary Priti Patel as a result asking her to investigate before further rounding on the Mayor in a series of robust criticisms of his approach.

Sir Stephen said that the text messages of the racist and misogynistic officers at Charing Cross, which Mr Khan cited as a trigger for his fury with Dame Cressida – “cannot have been a surprise” to the Mayor because his office had been briefed on them previously and they had been under investigation for four years.

He added that the Mayor had also been a “strong advocate” last year of giving Dame Cressida a three year contract extension, instead of the two she was granted by the Home Secretary, and had also been a “vocal supporter” of the Commissioner in a meeting with her and Ms Patel only a few weeks ago.

“I feel deeply disappointed,” Sir Stephen told a meeting of City Hall’s police and crime committee.

“There is a clear procedure laid down in statute to allow for the replacement of a police chief officer. It’s not been followed in this instance, it’s not even been initiated, due process has not been followed and instead we’ve seen matters played out in the media.

“Because of this, I’ve written to the Home Secretary to ask her to carry out a review of what’s happened in this case.”

Sir Stephen said that he would also City Hall’s police and crime committee to consider whether it wanted to investigate too before launching a further attack on the Mayor’s conduct.

He added: “As well as feeling deeply disappointed, I’m very surprised. Many of us are. Only a few months ago, the Mayor was a strong advocate for a three year extension for this Commissioner.

The Charing Cross messages cannot have been a surprise to this Mayor. The Mayor’s office for policing and crime have been briefed on these events and they have been under investigation for four years. Only a few weeks ago the Mayor was a vocal supporter of the Commissioner in a tripartite meeting with the Home Secretary, hence my surprise at what’s happened.”

Sir Stephen added that Dame Cressida was the outstanding police officer of her generation and with emotion cracking his voice that he had “never worked with a finer, more ethical, more professional, more resolute and dutiful, more caring leader.”

Dame Cressida resigned after being told by Mr Khan that he had no confidence in her ability to transform her force after a series of scandals including the Charing Cross Whatsapp exchanges between officers and the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens.

No date has been set yet for her departure and no details of the likely large payout that she might receive have been disclosed so far.

In response, Deputy Mayor of London Sophie Linden said a survey of 12,000 people showed around half did not have confidence in the Metropolitan Police, down from 68 per cent who did have confidence in 2017 when Dame Cressida became commissioner.

Ms Linden said: “It was clear to the mayor that urgent action needed to be taken and through the discussions and the follow-up correspondence from the commissioner, the mayor was very clear that he was not satisfied with the scale and the urgency of the response to particular things.

“One of which was an acceptance of the scale of the problem within the Metropolitan Police, but also a comprehensive plan to re-establish trust and confidence in Londoners.

The fights outside the Euro 2020 final and the Daniel Morgan inquiry are just the latest controversies to hit the force. But Cressida Dick is confident of serving a second term as its chief.

Cressida Dick following her investiture ceremony where she was made a dame, on July 14. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/AP

Mark Townsend @townsendmark Sun 18 Jul 2021 07.00 BST The Observer 

Beaming broadly as she faced the Prince of Wales in a gilded chamber at St James’s Palace, Cressida Dick was about to achieve another career high. A police officer of 38 years, she appeared exhilarated last Wednesday when receiving a damehood in recognition of her public service.

But storm clouds routinely follow the chief of Scotland Yard, and for Dick, more than most.

Several hours later, at 4.09pm, her force was pressured into releasing a statement defending its policing at Wembley after waves of ticketless supporters attempted to watch the Euro 2020 final on Sunday night.

At 9.15pm came another Met update, this time naming a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed in south London, the latest teenage homicide in a spike that is climbing towards a 13-year high.

For seasoned observers of the Met, such daily highs and lows are part and parcel of life as Britain’s most senior police officer. But increasingly, they are noticing something quite new: the extraordinary tenacity of the position’s current incumbent.

As calls for her resignation intensify following a rolling series of scandals including a bungled VIP paedophile ring inquiry, failings surrounding the murder of Sarah Everard and findings that the force is “institutionally corrupt,” the commissioner’s reaction has been to ask for another four-year term.

Few, if any of her predecessors, would survive half of what Dick has endured. Increasingly, one question has become irresistible: how did its embattled chief become so bulletproof?

The answer can be partly found within the vast officers’ mess of the Met’s newish headquarters by the River Thames.

“She’s a good cop, simple as that,” says Ken Marsh of the woman who successfully led Operation Trident, one of the force’s grittiest jobs.

Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers, believes her leadership style quickly seduced much of the rank and file.

“She’s not a shouter like some of her predecessors. She’s calm and that helps a lot. And she’s got our backs,” says Marsh, a veteran of 32 years service.

Her approach, he said, became evident weeks after becoming commissioner, during the chaos that followed the death of Keith Palmer, an unarmed PC who was stabbed when a terrorist attacked the Palace of Westminster in March 2017.

“We were running around like headless chickens but the first thing she did to me was come over and ask: ‘Ken are you looking after yourself?’ She’s one of the only senior officers who asks me how I am. That approach resonates among all of us,” said Marsh.

Others testify that her survivability might be rooted in her instinct to resist meddling in the affairs of the building 100 metres across the road from her office – the House of Commons.

“She appreciates politics can get very toxic very quickly. She is also not blind to the fact that some of her predecessors were badly burnt by failing to recognise that,” said a Whitehall source.

Another reason for Dick’s ability to fight fire is her relationship with the home secretary Priti Patel, herself under pressure following bullying allegations and divisive interventions on asylum and the right to protest.

At face value, Dick and Patel appear ideological bedfellows; both were horrified by the 2019 eco-protests that shut down the capital and are staunch advocates of stop and search.

Both, too, have spoken out over their opposition to taking the knee, the symbol of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.

Shabnam Chaudhri, who rose to become one of the Met’s most senior female Asian officers and who knows Dick well, believes these illiberal instincts may eventually prove her undoing.

Priti Patel and Cressida Dick are advocates of stop and search. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

“It’s fine to say [not taking the knee] but have you asked your officers? There was a lot of internal backlash from black officers and I know that because I speak to many of them. You have to show leadership but you also need to demonstrate that you’re human, that you’re the same,” said Chaudhri.

For former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal, such dissent is made easier to surmount by the fact that the home secretary finds herself under so much scrutiny. He believes Patel has made a simple political calculation that means Dick’s position is secure. “The commissioner is effectively a human shield for Patel,” said Afzal. “Boris Johnson did the same with [former health secretary] Matt Hancock: it’s somebody else who can absorb the flak. For Patel it’s 100% what she’s doing with the commissioner. All of our ire can be directed at the commissioner rather than the person responsible for where the [policing] priorities are set.”

A similar assessment may have been made by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.

Although who gets the final say on whether to fire the commissioner can appear ambiguous, Khan’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, effectively ended Ian Blair’s stint as the head of the Met in 2008.

But Khan, to the exasperation of many on the left, is unwilling to do the same. On Friday, Khan’s office reiterated its unwavering support for Dick, saying it looked “forward to working a second term” with the 60-year-old.

Patel’s affinity with Dick matters more. It might even explain why the commissioner has so steadfastly backed some of the home secretary’s more controversial proposals such as restrictions on protest.

Marsh defines it as a “working relationship”, with Dick’s intelligence helping sustain a professional dynamic. However, the two are far from soulmates. “I wouldn’t say they get on well. They’re not cosy.” It’s also prudent to remember, he added, that Dick is not Patel’s chosen one and was selected by former home secretary Theresa May.

But Afzal is confident that as long as Dick, along with the capital’s mayor, receives the flak for issues such as rising knife crime then Patel will readily indulge the status quo.

“Yet the truth is that Sadiq can only spend what the home secretary and Home Office give. The home secretary is the most powerful individual here – politically she decides what happens,” he added.

Afzal, however, contests Marsh’s assertion that the commissioner has universal grassroots support.

“There are a catalogue of failings under her leadership that demonstrably have not only impacted on the public’s confidence but the officers themselves. Some of them have spoken to me and the morale is really low. Even before the Sarah Everard issue, throughout the pandemic they’ve felt that they haven’t had the leadership they needed.”

Fan problems during the Euro 2020 final led to criticism of the Met. Photograph: Rave Footage / @dandickers83

Everard remains the final straw for many. Ten days ago Met officer Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty to killing the 33-year-old in south London amid allegations that police had failed to investigate previous incidents of indecent exposure by the killer. A vigil for Everard on Clapham Common had descended into chaos with women arrested amid allegations of heavy-handed policing. “Concerns spiralled with the Everard killing and how the vigil was policed in an inconsistent way compared to other protests,” said Afzal, a former chief crown prosecutor for north-west England.

Critics of the commissioner are also eager to dredge up the events of 16 years ago when Dick was gold commander in an operation that saw Jean Charles de Menezes shot dead at Stockwell tube station. Dick was exonerated, but the operation’s control room was condemned as “chaotic”.

Since then the charge sheet against Dick has considerably lengthened. Further failings on her watch include allegations that officers posed for selfies with the bodies of the victims of the Wembley park murders last June. The high-profile stop and search of British athlete Bianca Williams in west London last year outraged London’s black community.

Disquiet persists over Operation Midland, the Westminster sex abuse investigation that destroyed the lives of public figures on the testimony of a fantasist. Dick, who was briefly involved in the original operation, faces ongoing pressure to resign over this alone.

The most recent criticisms focus on last Sunday’s security failures at Wembley, with the force accused of failing to deploy sufficient officers or protect the venue from fans without tickets.

Weeks earlier, the Met’s handling of the Daniel Morgan murder investigation led an official inquiry to brand the force “institutionally corrupt.” Dick was personally censured for obstruction.

The findings over Morgan, says Chaudhri, proved the “killer” factor for her on whether Dick should continue in her post. “First we had the Met accused of institutional racism, then it was institutional corruption. There has to be a point where a line is drawn and they say: ‘You know what? We’ve got things wrong. We accept that.’

“The biggest problem is the denial,” said Chaudhri, a former detective superintendent who left the force in 2018 after 30 years.

But it is also issues around race that for many, including Chaudhri, stain Dick’s reputation. “I got on very well with her, but I didn’t feel that she really had a grip of what diversity really meant to her and policing.”

She points to how the enthusiastic policing of Black Lives Matter protests contrasted with the light touch taken against Extinction Rebellion demonstrations which paralysed London in 2019 and focused on high-profile areas.

“It’s a very sensitive issue for black communities,” said the 55-year-old. “I get told that a lot of serving BAME officers are scared because of the BLM approach, the stop and search agenda. I get a lot of people saying they are tired of trying to explain themselves.”

Marsh disagrees. “Out of the 43 forces in England and Wales, no other beats us for diversity. They don’t even get close.”

For others the ongoing youth violence epidemic is the issue that most weakens the commissioner’s position. After all, they say, it was her priority when accepting the top job in 2017.

Afzal believes Dick should resign to avoid trust in the police being eroded and further denting its ability to tackle knife crime.

“Policing without public confidence just isn’t going to happen. My concern is people are not going to come forward as either victims or witnesses,” he warned.

However those on the frontline of knife crime reject such assertions. Elena Noel, chair of Southwark’s anti-knife-crime forum and a former Home Office and London mayor adviser, states that not only is Dick “culturally competent”, but she also comprehends the complexities driving youth violence.

“Plus she understands the black community. She’s been brilliant. Cressida Dick is not to blame for knife crime. It needs a multi-agency approach,” said Noel.

Even so, some of the commissioner’s most ardent enthusiasts remain sceptical of her ambition to stay in post for another term.

“Fresh blood is always good,” said Marsh. “There are people in the wings like [assistant commissioner] Neil Basu, eminent people who could take the force in another direction. I’m not discrediting Cress but it’s healthy to freshen things up. A term is a term.”

Dick appears confident a second term is attainable. Not since Paul Condon in the 1990s has a Met commissioner served two full terms. Despite the litany of scandals, Dame Cressida Dick will back herself to achieve it.

By Tom Symonds Home affairs correspondent BBC News.

Image caption,

Dame Cressida arrives at New Scotland Yard the day after her resignation

The resignation of Britain's most senior police officer comes after a series of crises has engulfed the Metropolitan Police. Why has it proved so difficult to clean up the toxic culture associated with the force?

In full dress uniform, Dame Cressida Dick delivered her resignation speech on the balcony of New Scotland Yard, a slight break in her voice as she described the "honour and privilege" of leading the country's biggest police force.

Her grim-faced aides appeared shocked by the speed of events. Inside the force, she is well-liked. She has defended "my Met", as she has called it, endlessly.

But over her shoulder, on Thursday evening, the lights of London glittered - a city arguably less fond of "its Met", since she took over five years ago. She failed to win the friends outside, that came so easily inside her organisation. Charities representing women, the families of murder victims, and parts of the media turned against her.

There were too many moments when the first woman to run the Metropolitan Police had had to apologise for its behaviour.

Nine hours earlier, the commissioner hadn't been planning to resign. She told a radio phone-in that her staff backed her and even the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had said he trusted her.

That comment about the mayor seems to have brought him to a tipping point - along with new and horrifying disclosures about Charing Cross police station. His people contacted hers and made things clear. She no longer had his support.

Her five years in charge started with the horrors of the 2017 terrorist attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire, and ends with the pandemic. Crime is up by 4% with 45% fewer cases solved. Knife crime fell as Covid struck, though there has been a recent series of teenage murders and there are concerns violent crime, Dame Cressida's priority, is rising again.

But she's been brought down by crimes and bad attitudes within her own ranks. Racism, misogyny, bullying and incompetence. Rape, and in the chilling case of Sarah Everard, murder.

Over a long career, former Metropolitan Police detective Shabnam Chaudhri fought against "the culture", which for her included racist abuse.

Speaking to the BBC the day after Dame Cressida's resignation, she described policing as a closed community.

They disguise it as banter. There’s a saying ‘know your audience' - these guys know their audience

Shabnam Chaudhri
Former Met officer

"They get so comfortable in their own company," she says, "that when new people come in, they get indoctrinated to that way of thinking." It is a culture of "corridor comments".

"They disguise it as banter. There's a saying "know your audience". These guys know their audience."

Too often, she says, officers complaining about misconduct, or perceived to be "using the race card" are briefed against, even when they move teams. She should know. It happened to her, again and again. A constant drag on her career ambitions.

The Metropolitan Police has a whistleblowing hotline. A channel for raising complaints about poor attitudes. But Ms Chaudhri said it was used to make false allegations against her, because she had spoken out.

It is possible that a toxic culture at the Met was always there, but we couldn't see it as easily.

A woman holds up placard at vigil to Sarah Everard at Clapham Common

Things have changed. When officers arrest people, onlookers often start filming, their pictures shared instantly on social media. Footage from police body-worn cameras is sometimes made public during legal proceedings.

And then there are messaging groups.

"WhatsApp leaves a footprint," Ms Chaudhri says.

"They think they're safe within a group. These people act like a pack of wolves and the only way they get exposed is because these messages come out in the investigation process."

Group messages provided crucial evidence for Operation Hotton, the investigation into abusive behaviour at Charing Cross police station. This case appears to have convinced the mayor that enough was enough.

The investigation uncovered messages which were "highly sexualised and/or violent and discriminatory, generally described as 'banter' by police officers".

They included:

• Messages      about police officers attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders      - sent within a WhatsApp group containing 17 police officers
• Numerous messages about rape      within WhatsApp and Facebook chat groups
• Homophobic comments
• Use of words that could be      considered misogynist, racist, or constituting disability discrimination

The comments were claimed to be a "joke or game, or just a 'misunderstanding'," an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct concluded.

There are a number of features of "The Job" which make this sort of behaviour more likely, according to a senior figure in policing who spoke on condition of anonymity.

It starts at entry level.

"They say: 'He's going to be a good officer so we'll knock the rough edges off him.'

"But a leopard doesn't change his spots, and then you've got a problem for 30 years." Most officers join in their early 20s and retire at 50.

"Probationary constable misbehaviour needs to be dealt with early on," he says.

Gaps in vetting are one possible reason why the Met police officer Wayne Couzens' interest in extreme pornography and drug abuse were not discovered.

In his case, according to the "banter", his nickname was "the rapist". He was one. And a killer.

In one of the Met's many apologies, it said "vetting is a snapshot in time and, unfortunately can never 100% guarantee an individual's integrity".

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary is reviewing the vetting of officers, and will report later in the year.

In the Met, experience is highly valued. The force has major investigation teams capable of solving complex cases and made up of officers respected for what they've done in the past.

Most of them do not contribute to the toxic culture which is now damaging trust in the force. But there's a concern that as careers progress in some teams, bad attitudes become entrenched.

Leroy Logan, a retired superintendent, says police "middle-managers" are failing to tackle those views.

Image caption, Cressida Dick on the day of her resignation

The sergeants and the inspectors should be the "checks and balances" in the organisation, he says.

"It's not being Mr or Ms Popular. You have to have the ethical leadership to hold people to account, which they don't like. But it's what you're supposed to do."

Shabnam Chaudhri puts it another way. "We need the good officers to call out the bad ones."

She believes this goes right to the top and is among those who believe Dame Cressida Dick was too defensive of the Met, and not focused enough on communicating the depth of its cultural issues.

The Met's answer to all of this is Baroness Louise Casey. She is a respected public policy trouble-shooter, who has advised governments on everything from homelessness and families in crisis, to violence during the Euros at Wembley Stadium in 2021.

Now she's been brought in by the Met to hunt down bad attitudes within its ranks, and stamp them out. But she has barely started. The BBC has been told she has only been able to begin work at New Scotland Yard this week because of recent ill-health.

One issue she is expected to deal with early on is that it can be difficult to get rid of bad officers.

Police employment rights are well protected, partly because as police officers they are not allowed to go on strike.

This means everything is dealt with formally, with a process akin to a criminal investigation. While in some cases the misconduct in question is criminal, the complexity of the process means there can be a tendency not to make complaints.

Some cases go to the Independent Office for Police Conduct and take months to resolve. Baroness Louise Casey will be under pressure to speed things up.

But it could be one of her toughest assignments. Ms Chaudhri believes "the culture" will try to block her at every turn.

We have been told that some of Baroness Casey's ideas were included in a plan sent to mayor Sadiq Khan to persuade him not to move against the commissioner. A plan which was rejected.

This leaves the Met in a difficult position. Scotland Yard sources say Baroness Casey's work is due to continue up until Christmas. Even that sounds like a small window for changing the culture of a huge organisation.

The pressure is going to grow. A police complaints investigation into the case of Bianca Williams, a black athlete and her partner pulled from their car and handcuffed by the police, is due soon.

In addition, three Met police officers are currently facing criminal prosecutions: two for rape, one for unauthorised meetings with children.

The "bad 'uns", as Dame Cressida Dick controversially described them, are not just damaging those they work with. The harm they do to trust between people and the police makes the job of decent officers more difficult.

And the taint spreads beyond London. The Met is supposed to be a totemic police force. Scotland Yard, known around the world. It sets standards for smaller forces. Its officers do specialist roles such as protecting the royals, or tracking terrorists.

The scandal, and the resignation of Dame Cressida Dick, have been deeply damaging.

A former officer, respected in the ex-police community, spent the day after the resignation taking the temperature among his contacts within police forces.

By the evening, he had sent a text message: "All looking to leave policing except the last few who are pension trapped. This has really damaged morale."

The Observer Sarah Everard October 2nd2021

The murder of a woman by a serving officer has exposed the Met, once labelled institutionally racist, to accusations that it is also institutionally misogynist.

Met police commissioner Cressida Dick at Wayne Couzens’ sentencing on 30 September. Photograph: Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock

Mark Townsend @townsendmark Sat 2 Oct 2021 16.07 BST

Within the vast neoclassical headquarters of the Metropolitan police in central London, the floor hosting the directorate of professional standards is the one place any visitor would try to behave.

Sarah Everard murder: five voices demanding police reform

Its 320 staff are tasked with investigating complaints of inappropriate behaviour, corruption and misconduct among officers. Yet even here, until recently at least, misogynists appear to have felt untouchable.

Ex-Met detective superintendent Shabnam Chaudhri recalls visiting the directorate five years ago to raise concerns over the inappropriate behaviour of a male officer only to find staff from the unit trumping her allegations with their own accounts of the same perpetrator.

“There were two female officers at the directorate who described him as vile. They said: ‘He used to come in here and openly brag about his sex life,’” she said.

Chaudhri asked the women why they taken no action against the man? “Their response was that they didn’t want to rock the boat. He was a senior officer and it would just make life difficult for them. I think that’s quite a prevalent concern across the organisation.”

It is precisely that culture – the allegation that officers are able to get away with inappropriate behaviour – that now finds itself under ferocious scrutiny following the lurid details that emerged last week into how a Met officer, Wayne Couzens, abused his power and police badge to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard, 33.

The force, and some government ministers, had tried to suggest that Couzens was a lone rotten apple. That line became harder to maintain during his sentencing when the judge revealed officers had “spoken supportively” of the killer.

Compounding the outrage were subsequent revelations that Couzens exchanged misogynistic, racist and homophobic material with five other officers, three from the Met, in a WhatsApp group.

Although the Met has since unveiled an action plan to try to restore trust, many have lamented that the debate has once again focused on changing women’s behaviour rather than that of the perpetrators.

But with widespread revulsion showing little sign of abating, consensus is building that Everard’s murder might provoke a watershed moment for Britain’s biggest force, comparable to the shockwaves that convulsed British policing following the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.

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The killing of the black teenager led to 1999’s Macpherson report which called the Met “institutionally racist,” triggering introspection and an appetite for change.

More than two decades later, many say it is sexism that stains Scotland Yard.

Susannah Fish, a former chief constable of Nottinghamshire police who suffered sexual assaults from colleagues, has no hesitation describing policing as “institutionally misogynistic”.

She argues the Met deserves to face another Macpherson moment. “We need a public inquiry, on a similar scale to Stephen Lawrence. The home secretary needs to prioritise violence against women and girls as a national threat.”

It is a view supported by female former Met recruits. One officer, who left in 2019 but who asked not to be identified, said: “If you’re going to categorise sexist banter as sexism, then from my experience the Met has a big problem. To get to the truth any inquiry would need to guarantee women that they could speak freely and safely.”

Chaudhri, who joined the service four years before Lawrence was stabbed to death, says she can already predict the outcome of a future inquiry.

“I wouldn’t be surprised that, after an independent review of the female officers and police staff across the organisation, the force gets a further label of institutional sexism.”

Others argue the Met has already sufficiently changed. Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers, also joined the force in 1989. He describes the culture he initially encountered as one that required transformation, but feels the ensuing decades have eradicated regressive behaviour.

“Are we sexist, misogynist, and all the rubbish that’s now coming out? No, we’re not in 2021. Were we? Yes when I joined. As an organisation we’re now far better than most you would find.”

Others are sceptical about claims of progress. Former Met chief superintendent Parm Sandhu, who like Marsh and Chaudhri has served more than 30 years in the force, is among those who encountered a “very sexist and misogynistic” culture and believes commissioner Cressida Dick should resign.

There is no sign, however, that a new face will emerge to guide the Met through one of the most tumultuous chapters in its 192-year history.

The two people who control her destiny – London mayor Sadiq Khan and home secretary Priti Patel – continue to support the commissioner, ignoring critics who claim Dick has failed to make the force more progressive at a time policing has never been under more scrutiny.

Marsh claims that having an openly gay woman in charge of the Met is itself progress.

“She has done nothing wrong. Plus, she’s championed women and gay females coming into policing,” he said.

Yet Chaudhri maintains that women officers remain afraid to speak out.

“There are many female officers who are scared and reluctant to take that course of action because they feel that it will tarnish their career. And I understand why they don’t necessarily do it,” she said.

After she spoke out against a male officer who made female colleagues “uncomfortable”, Chaudhri received a number of anonymous complaints including how she wore nail polish which was “not part of the uniform dress code”.

The 55-year-old believes that if the government is serious about challenging misogyny then its recently unveiled strategy to tackle violence against women and girls needs to be reframed. “One of the key factors is now how to elevate it, giving it the same importance as something like counter-terrorism.”

Fish agrees, adding: “She [Patel] should put it on the national threat register at the same level as terrorism – and then provide resources accordingly.”

In the meantime the fight against misogyny resembles a war of attrition.

Even after Everard’s murder in March, Chaudhri received disquieting messages from serving Met officers, one relating to a woman working custody suite night shifts who has to “put up with all sorts of inappropriate behaviour by the sergeant”.

Elsewhere, the work of the directorate of professional standards continues. One of its most recent cases, concluded last month, found two former Met officers had sent “a series of misogynistic text messages” containing “derogatory comments about women” to colleagues.

Whatever the eventual fallout of Everard’s horrific death at the hands of an officer, no one – not least inside the directorate – expects such cases to cease any time soon.

The Home Affairs Committee calls for urgent action to tackle low levels of BME recruitment and retention, unjustified racial disparities in the use of stop and search and other police powers, and a worrying decline of confidence in the police among some BME communities.

Twenty-two years on from the publication of the Macpherson report that followed the Inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, the Committee has found that whilst policing has changed for the better in many areas, there are still serious and deep rooted racial disparities, and that neither police forces nor governments have taken race equality seriously enough for too long.

The Committee warns that without real and sustainable change the effectiveness and legitimacy of the police will be undermined, and it will take another two decades for police forces in England and Wales to reflect the communities they serve.

The Committee’s report into progress against the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’s recommendations has found:

• A persistent confidence gap between Black and White      adults in the fairness of policing that has widened in recent years.      Community confidence must become a priority for police forces and the Home      Office.
• On current rates of progress, police forces won’t be      representative of their communities for another twenty years – that would      be forty years after the Macpherson report raised the issue and nearly      half a century after the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. This is      inexcusable. New minimum targets must be set immediately for current      recruitment so that all forces in England and Wales reflect the ethnic      diversity of their local populations and a national target of at least 14%      is met by 2030.
• The use of stop and search is more disproportionate      now than it was two decades ago, with no adequate explanation or      justification for the nature and scale of racial disparities, including on      drug possession searches where in 2019 Black people were 2.4 times more      likely than White people to be searched but in the last year were less      likely to use drugs. New scrutiny and transparency is needed including      more use of police body worn cameras, community oversight, and new police      training.
• Current arrangements for ensuring progress on race      equality in policing are not working. A new statutory Race Equality Commissioner      for Policing is needed to investigate and scrutinise progress alongside a      new Race Equality Steering Group to be chaired by the Home Secretary.
• The Macpherson report led to a transformation in the      policing of racist crimes which senior officers are committed to      sustaining, however policing is now being left behind by the rise of      online racist crime and a new strategy is needed.

The Committee found that in the years following the Macpherson report there was a welcome focus by all policing organisations to implement the report’s recommendations and to drive forward institutional change. However, over time that progress has stalled and race equality has too often not been taken seriously enough.

The Committee concludes that policing today is very different from twenty-two years ago and there have been important and welcome improvements in policing, including on the policing of racist and hate crimes, the commitment of senior officers to promoting diversity and equality and good examples of local community policing.

However, it has also identified serious and persistent shortcomings on recruitment, misconduct, the use of key police powers and community confidence which point to structural problems that go beyond individual bias.

The Committee found that the Macpherson report’s overall aim of “the elimination of racist prejudice and disadvantage, and the demonstration of fairness in all aspects of policing”, has still not been met.

Publishing the report, the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Yvette Cooper MP, said:

“The Macpherson report into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the terrible denial of justice to his family had a huge impact on policing and tackling racism when it was first published. But we have found that in too many areas progress has stalled and for too long there has been a lack of focus and accountability on race equality in policing. There are still persistent, deep rooted problems and unjustified racial disparities in key areas where Sir William Macpherson made recommendations over twenty years ago. That is unacceptable and must change.

“Without clear action to tackle race inequality we fear that, in ten years’ time, future Committees will be hearing the very same arguments that have been rehearsed already for over twenty years. That cannot be allowed to happen. If the police and Government fail to address these problems urgently, community confidence in the police and the long-standing Peel principles around fairness in policing will be permanently undermined.”

• Adults from Black and Mixed ethnic backgrounds are      less likely to have confidence in the police than adults from White or      Asian backgrounds, and the confidence gap has widened. This is deeply      troubling and puts in jeopardy the principle of policing by consent.
• The Macpherson report recommendations on increasing      trust and confidence in policing in minority ethnic communities are not      being met today. This needs to become a priority for police forces and the      Home Office; all forces must set out clear local plans to improve      confidence among BME communities.

• The Macpherson report brought about a transformation      in the way police recognise racist incidents and deal with racist crimes -      one of the most important legacies of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.
• However, racial hatred remains a significant problem      in society, with more than 75,000 race related incidents recorded by the      police in England and Wales in 2019/20. We are deeply concerned that some      Black men and women still report that they have been treated as suspects      not victims of crime.  Police forces are being left behind by the rise of      online racist crimes. Alongside the new Online Safety Bill there needs to      be a new strategy, including skills training and technology, for policing      hate crime online.

• By 2020 BME officers represented just 7% of the police      service across England and Wales, far below the 14% of the population in      England and Wales who identify as BME. Levels of under representation are      most marked among senior ranks, only 4% of officers at or above the rank      of chief inspector are from BME backgrounds.
• Our analysis suggests that, on the current rate of      progress, we will not have properly representative police forces in the UK      for another twenty years. That would be four decades after the Macpherson      report raised the seriousness of this issue and nearly half a century      after the murder of Stephen Lawrence. It is completely inexcusable.
• There has been a lack of focus, consistency and      leadership in driving BME recruitment and promotion in the police service      for far too long.
• The planned recruitment of an additional 20,000 police      officers must be used to make immediate and significant progress. The Government      should agree minimum targets for the recruitment of BME officers with each      constabulary in England and Wales reflecting the respective composition of      its local population, in order to achieve at least 14% of officers      nationally by 2030.
• We welcome recent progress by forces such as      Nottinghamshire. A national strategy should be drawn up by the National      Policing Board with a requirement on chief officers to use positive      action, and the Home Secretary should use her statutory powers to direct      action if targets are not being met.

• BME officers are more than twice as likely to be      dismissed than White officers. Delays in gathering robust data or      conducting systematic analysis of the problem reflect complacency and a      combined failure by policing organisations and the Home Office.
• Urgent action is needed by all forces to implement      NPCC reforms, to monitor and report progress and to include BME officers      and advisers in Professional Standards Departments.

• Black people are over nine and a half times more      likely to be stopped and searched than White people. Despite the      Macpherson recommendations, the disproportionality is greater now than it      was twenty-two years ago.
• Stop and search is an important police power, but no      evidence to this inquiry has adequately explained or justified the nature      and scale of the disproportionality in the use of stop and search powers.      That has damaged confidence in stop and search which needs to be rebuilt.
• The way the Metropolitan Police increased stop and      search use during the first covid-19 lockdown was wrong. It should never      have been possible for the equivalent of 1 in 4 Black men aged 15-24 who      were not committing a crime to be stopped and searched in a three-month      period.
• Sensible recommendations from HMICFRS on stop and      search from four years ago have still not been widely implemented or      sustained. That needs to change urgently.
• The Committee is also calling for further reforms,      including recording the ethnicity of those who are subject to road traffic      stops, additional training for police officers and staff on communication,      conflict management and de-escalation, and full use of body worn video,      with internal reviews and external community oversight, both to build      confidence and to ensure improvements are made.

• In the first lockdown Black people were 1.8 times more      likely to be subject to covid enforcement measures than White people.      Policing and the Home Office need systems in place to ensure that new      technology and new powers are implemented fairly, without racial bias and      without widening unfair racial disparities.

• The Committee found that policing today is very      different from twenty-two years ago and there have been important and      welcome improvements in policing since the Macpherson report was      published. However, it also found persistent, deep rooted and unjustified      racial disparities in key areas, and that there has been a systematic      failure on the part of the police service in England and Wales and      governments, over many years, to take race inequality in policing      seriously enough.
• The Committee recommends a comprehensive review and      overhaul of police training on racism, diversity and equality so that      training in the future explicitly focuses on anti-racism.
• It also calls for action to challenge racism within      policies, structures, organisational culture and institutions, including      the adoption of the approach set out in the David Lammy review of the Criminal      Justice System: explain or change.
• The Committee believes that the concept of      institutional racism set out by the Macpherson report remains important      today and that institutions must be able to challenge themselves and be      held publicly to account for addressing racism within structures or      policies as well as within individual attitudes. It recommends that the      Equality and Human Rights Commission undertakes work to determine a      framework against which individual institutions including police forces can      be rigorously assessed.

• The current system for delivery and accountability on      race equality within policing is not working and the impetus for change      from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry has not been sustained.
• A new independent, statutory Race Equality      Commissioner for policing should be established to provide ongoing      scrutiny, including analysis and advice on policing policy, tools and      procedures that have a potential impact on racial disparities.
• The Home Secretary should establish and chair, under      the aegis of the National Policing Board, a Race Equality Steering Group.      The Home Secretary should have oversight of progress in addressing race      equality across the 43 police forces.

Lord Simon Woolley: ‘Home Office policy is translating into a further alienation of police officers and black people.’

Mark Townsend Home affairs editor @townsendmark Sun 1 Nov 2020 08.00 GMT 

Attempts to recruit more black police officers are being made “10 times” harder by the racial profiling by police, according to experts behind a government-funded recruitment programme.

Lord Woolley, former chair of the government’s Race Disparity Unit, said that recruitment was being compromised by the continued criminalisation of young black men for minor crimes, such as cannabis possession, and the racial disproportionality of measures like stop and search.

Initiatives such as the Home Office-funded Police Now, which aims to inspire graduates from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds to join the service, are finding its messages undermined by measures that “harassed and intimidated black people”, according to Woolley.

This week Police Now, of which Woolley is a trustee, is to release a hard-hitting film to boost diversity in the ranks, arguing that police forces need to start resembling the communities they serve to help restore trust. But Woolley warned that such initiatives would make little difference so long as black people felt they were being “racially profiled”.

He said: “Home Office policy is translating into a further alienation of police officers and black people.

“We get stopped and searched more, so the last thing we want to do is join the police. That also means the police cannot police with consent because they are loathed; in effect, they are racial profiling, so it’s very difficult for me to recruit black people to the police force. My job has been made 10 times more difficult.”

Boris Johnson has made recruiting 20,000 new officers a cornerstone of his premiership, although he hasn’t stipulated any ethnicity targets.

On Thursday the Home Office announced almost 6,000 people had joined by the end of September, although again no ethnic breakdown was issued. By comparison, Police Now says it has recruited almost 1,600 officers over the past five years with 20% identifying as black, Asian and ethnic minority – a proportion it wants “to far exceed”.

Its recruitment of black officers stands at 6%, twice the size of the UK’s black British population. However Woolley, a commissioner for race on the Equality and Human Rights Commission and one of the founders of Operation Black Vote, said the stigmatisation of the black community and racial profiling threatened to cap numbers.

Sgt Upile Mtitimila, who was stopped and searched several times as a teenager growing up in Manchester. Photograph: Police Now

Official figures for England and Wales released last Tuesday showed that black people were nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by police than white people were.

Despite calls from campaigners to decriminalise cannabis possession the home secretary Priti Patel, has announced a return to a hard line on drugs offences.

Woolley said: “We have a very harsh home secretary who sadly has talked about zero tolerance for cannabis.

“Then you consider that 70 percent of stop and search are for drugs and stop and search is disproportionate. It’s targeting low hanging fruit, it’s default racial profiling and it makes it difficult to recruit people to join the police.”

His comments were made as stop and search returned to the spotlight after the police watchdog last week criticised the Metropolitan Police for officers committing many errors during the procedure. The

Independent Office for Police Conduct made 11 recommendations for Britain’s biggest force – responsible for almost half of all police stops carried out in England and Wales –to reform its use.

Last week a black police officer, Upile Mtitimila, said he was stopped and searched seven times as a teenager in Manchester, yet the police failed to explain why he was targeted.

“It massively shaped my perception of the police,” he said.

He learnt how such experiences were shared with friends and family, and rippled through communities, forming negative views that became entrenched.

Yet in 2016 he joined the police with a personal mandate to restore trust in the communities he served. He is now a sergeant.

Chief executive of Police Now, David Spencer,said the police service was still short of “being where we should be in terms of representation”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are recruiting an additional 20,000 police officers and the home secretary has been clear this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to increase diversity in policing.

“We’ve already recruited almost 6,000 of these officers, and since April 10.7% of new recruits have identified as black, Asian or minority ethnic. But we know there is more to do.”.

By  Barney Davis @BarneyDavisES EVENING STANDARD 23-2 2022

A14-year-old boy has been stabbed in a broad daylight high street attack.

Two arrests have been made after the teenager was knifed in High Street, Barkingside at around 4.10pm on Tuesday.

Paramedics were called to the scene and took the victim to hospital.

Scotland Yard said his condition is not known at this time.

Police have arrested two males in connection with the attack. They remain in police custody.

A number of crime scenes are in place as detectives investigate the stabbing.

It came as a 19-year-old was stabbed in Enfield.

Police were called at about 1.30pm to Palmerston Crescent following reports of a man with a stab injury.

Officers and London Ambulance Service attended, and a 19-year-old man was taken to hospital. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

Scotland Yard said no arrests have been made.

Joe Lepper
Wednesday, February 16, 2022

Black and ethnic minority children in care are being “accelerated” through the criminal justice system due to a dual threat of “care system failings” and racism by police and the courts, an academic report has warned.

Black children are more likely to be given harsher sentences by the courts, research shows. Picture: Adobe Stock

It warns that looked-after children from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be criminalised and impacted by instability within care placements.

They are also more likely to receive a custodial sentence when being dealt with by courts, the report warns.

This effectively doubles the disadvantage they encounter in the youth justice system.

Based on in depth interviews with children’s services and youth justice experts as well as analysis of latest data, the research found that failings in the care and criminal justice systems “result in institutionalised criminalisation of black and minority ethnic looked-after children who must contend with both the stigma of their ethnicity and of being in care”.

The research, by Lancaster University Law School research associate Dr Katie Hunter, found that black children are among the hardest hit group. They “are subjected to progressively harsher treatment of at all stages of the youth justice system”, she found.

Experts interviewed are particularly critical of “excessive” policing of black children, which they said was being driven by racism.

Courts are more likely to hand out “harsher sentences” to black children than those who are white, added the research.

“Analyses of official data indicate that black children are more likely to be punished and to be punished more severely at all stages of the youth justice process,” it said.

The research has been published weeks after the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and Ministry of Justice revealed that black children account for 29 per cent of the youth custody population, an increase of 18 per cent compared with a decade ago.

YJB chair Keith Fraser said that the youth justice system is “categorically failing on every count to halt the overrepresentation of black children”.

According to HM Inspectorate of Prisons figures from 2021, more than half of boys in the secure estate have experience of care. This is around double the proportion seen a decade earlier.

Fiona Simpson
Wednesday, February 9, 2022

Secondary schools are “missing an opportunity” to link with local youth services to deliver extra-curricular activities and improve pupil wellbeing, MPs have been told.

Moussin Ismail is principal of Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre in London. Picture: Parliament TV

Youth facilities and volunteers should be used to deliver clubs and activities without increasing teachers’ workload, Moussin Ismail, principal of Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre in London, told the education select committee.

At an evidence session looking at children’s mental health and wellbeing, chair Robert Halfon quizzed attendees on suggestions from government and think-tanks that extending the school day could help children recover from the pandemic.

“There are some statistics that suggest if you have more enrichment activities, it not only improves wellbeing but also educational attainment as well,” Halfon, Conservative MP for Harlow, said.

Ismail added that “most headteachers would love to do that but the perennial issue is always going to be funding and who is going to pay for it”.

“I remember a time when I was in school, when you had lots of clubs in the local community who were able to send volunteers to run sessions.

“I think there is a missed opportunity in secondary schools to utilise youth centres and volunteers. Using some of the sports facilities and some of the sports coaching provided by youth centres as part of extended days would remove some of the burden that schools are facing in terms of workload and finances,” he added.

Catherine Roche, chief executive of children’s mental health charity Place2Be, said increasing access to extracurricular activities for all pupils is “hugely important”.

“The challenge is how to financially make that work for staff in schools. I think it’s probably down to what else is available within the local community,” she added.

Echoing the points made by Ismail and Roche, Lord Richard Layard, an economist who was also a commissioner for the Legatum Institute’s Commission on Wellbeing and Policy, told the committee that combining the expertise of school staff and youth services is “where the power is” in terms of increasing pupils’ wellbeing.

“I love the idea of having volunteers come in to deliver activities. If you can bring in people, I don’t want to add to the burden of teachers, so if you can combine the two that’s where the power is,” he said.

The evidence session took place during Children’s Mental Health Week 2022, which runs from 7 to 11 February.

Fiona Simpson Tuesday, January 5, 2021

The pandemic has seen the number of young people in work reach a record low level. Experts say government schemes are short-term solutions, prompting youth organisations to develop their own support programmes.

Charities and youth work organisations are offering free training and mentoring schemes for disadvantaged young people. Picture: Pressmaster/Adobe Stock

Youth employment hit a record low in the three months to October, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show, highlighting the devastating impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on opportunities for 16- to 24-year-olds.

Reports suggest young people have been worst hit by job losses caused by the impact of the virus as many entry-level jobs are in sectors still badly affected by the crisis.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has ploughed billions of pounds into the Kickstart jobs scheme, which is aimed specifically at young people, and the government’s Plan for Jobs, as well as a multi-billion-pound investment in apprenticeships.

Charities, youth work organisations and private sector companies have also stepped up to offer free training, mentoring schemes and job opportunities for the most disadvantaged young people, with many harnessing the power of online platforms and video tools to match potential new recruits with employers (see below).

Many options available

Mike Hawking, head of policy and partnerships at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, says there is “no shortage” of short-term programmes offering opportunities to boost employment skills for young people hard hit by the pandemic.

“There are a lot of options for younger people who are out of work due to the pandemic offering funding, training and work experience to support them back into the jobs market,” he adds.

However, experts question if enough is being done to prevent “permanent scarring” for young people embarking on their career and raise concerns over whether a plethora of training and employment schemes will lead to confusion for employees and job hunters alike.

The number of young people aged 16 to 24 in employment between August and October dropped by 90,000, meaning youth employment fell to 3.51 million, the lowest level on record, says the ONS.

Separate ONS data shows there was a 120 per cent rise in the number of 18- to 24-year-olds claiming out-of-work benefits between March and November 2020, while the 16-24 unemployment rate increased to 14.6 per cent (see graphics).

The ONS calculates employment rates based on economic activity of the population, whereas unemployment rates are based on numbers of new benefits claimants.

Worst-affected jobs

Research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies states that under-25s are already 2.5 times more likely to work in sectors worst affected by lockdown restrictions, including hospitality, non-food retail, and arts and leisure services.

Sectors that shut down as a result of national lockdowns in March and November, and intermittently due to the introduction of tiered restrictions, employed nearly a third of all employees under the age of 25 compared with one in eight workers aged 25 and over.

Jonathan Townsend, UK chief executive at The Prince’s Trust, says: “Young people are facing a double jeopardy in that they’re more likely to have lost their job at the start of the pandemic and the least likely to have found a new one.”

The £2bn Kickstart jobs scheme gives employers the opportunity to offer young people on Universal Credit state-subsidised work placements and offers businesses £1,500 to set up support and training for those on the scheme.

Kickstart also sees the government fund the wages of employees, up to 100 per cent of National Minimum Wage, for 25 hours a week for six months.

As part of the government’s one-year Spending Review focused solely on the response to the coronavirus crisis, Sunak pledged £127m for traineeships, sector-based work academy placements and the National Careers Service, as well as £2.5bn for apprenticeships.

The government also announced a £95m package of free Level 2 and 3 training courses for 18- and 19-year-old school leavers, and Level 3 courses for adults. Course options include qualifications in childcare, health care, construction, plumbing and bricklaying.

Companies including the National Grid have also set up training schemes and funding streams aimed at disadvantaged young people.

Risk of confusion

However, experts have warned a raft of solutions may spark confusion for both professionals and young people.

Leigh Middleton, chief executive of the National Youth Agency, says: “New programmes should provide much needed stability to the jobs market in the short term. To be effective, they must not only provide work experience and training, but need to recognise and respond to the changing nature of future work and employment.

“There is a danger that a myriad of employment initiatives can be just as confusing to the professionals as it is to the young people and communities they seek to support. They need consistent and coherent support throughout, to help remove barriers and ensure there is no cliff-edge of support when young people reach 18.”

Others have warned that support schemes such as Kickstart may have a detrimental effect on apprenticeships at a time when apprenticeship starts for 16- to 18-year-olds have fallen by 79 per cent compared with 2019.

Jane Hickie, managing director at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, says: “We are now seeing evidence that our big fear in the summer about the Kickstart scheme displacing apprenticeships is being realised because the Kickstart incentives for employers and young people are more attractive. Nor are tweaks to the levy transfer system going to be the answer to restoring smaller employers to their traditional role of being major recruiters.”

Hawking says the better incentives for Kickstart are resulting in investment shifting away from long-term training opportunities.

He says: “The danger is we have a focus on temporary jobs schemes which only work short term rather than a long-term review of the apprenticeship system.”

Hawking also raises concerns over permanent “scarring” of young people’s career paths.

“A lack of long-term solutions to the youth unemployment crisis means this scarring will last for years,” he adds.

Middleton adds: “We must learn lessons from the depths of the 1980s recession which wrote off a generation of young people, and many families, to mass unemployment and more punitive approaches to non-participation in training schemes, with little or no hope of employment at the end.”

Improving opportunities

He says that a youth work-led approach is “essential” in improving opportunities.

“NYA has teamed up with Youth Employment UK,” he says, “and will publish a joint report in the new year on a youth work approach to employment.

“Significantly, good youth work promotes enterprise and young people’s agency, with a range of skills that employers want for young people ‘to be work ready’ and is equally important for the self-employed, business start-ups and gig economy.”

As unemployment rates rise, what unites those looking to support young people through a growing crisis is the need for long-term solutions as opposed to a sticking plaster with no certainty over whether funding will be available past the end of the next financial year.

 

CHARITY JOBS AND TRAINING INITIATIVES

Reach Up, UK Youth, Adviza and Coca Cola European Partners

Reach Up is a five-day employability training skills programme aimed at 16- to 25-year-olds not in work or education which coaches participants over Zoom. Participants have the opportunity to network with staff from Coca-Cola European Partners and take part in a charity fundraising project. Each participant is also offered a £100 bursary towards further training.

Rapid Recovery Challenge, Nesta

Nesta’s £3m Rapid Recovery Challenge offers organisations £125,000 each in funding to develop innovative solutions that help young people access jobs and financial support. Recipients of the grant – part funded by the Money and Pensions Services, JP Morgan Chase and the Department for Work and Pensions – include UK Youth & Snook. The partnership provides a range of digital tools to educate young people on budgeting.

Grid for Good, National Grid

Aimed at disadvantaged young people, including those out of work and prison leavers, Grid for Good will support hundreds of 16- to 30-year-olds to participate in the programme and support them in gaining an insight into the world of work and the energy industry. The scheme includes work readiness training; 12-week career mentoring; two-weeks work experience; and access to apprenticeships and internships.

Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, DofE Resilience Fund

The Resilience Fund has been created to pay for 12,000 DofE places for young people facing disadvantage to help them secure job interviews and job opportunities. The fund will support online training for up to 3,500 youth workers – including under-24s – to support places for disadvantaged young people. This includes senior managers, frontline managers and volunteers.

JETinspired, the Jon Egging Trust

The charity, which specialises in delivering early intervention life-skills programmes, is seeking to support more young people with its new digital toolkit, JETinspired, in partnership with the Red Arrows. The toolkit, available online, is aimed at helping teachers to support young people to make the right career choices.

Get Hired, The Prince’s Trust

In response to the crisis, The Prince’s Trust has launched a Get Hired Jobs Board to match employers with young people who are ready to work now. The online hub offers virtual events where employers can meet potential recruits, a matching service for employers and those looking for work, and training for young people already matched to businesses.

Joe Lepper

Thursday, March 3, 2022

More than 21,000 children a year, some as young as 10, are being detained in police cells overnight, despite legal requirements on councils and police to protect their wellbeing.

Latest available figures, for 2019, show that at least 21,369 children were detained in cells overnight. Only a third had been arrested.

Of these, 244 were aged 12 or younger, including nine who were just 10 years old.

The figures have been revealed in a report by Just for Kids Law (JFKL). It warns that the number of very young people kept in custody overnight could be even higher, as only a minority of police forces provided the charity with custody data for young children.

Black children are being disproportionally detained overnight, accounting for more than a fifth of children in cells, the charity also found. In addition, 15 per cent of children included in the report are from other minority ethnic backgrounds.

Often children’s experience in cells causes “fear, anxiety and distress”, the charity said.

One 15-year-old boy, who is in care and has been held in police cells on several occasions, told researchers: “It’s horrible when they keep you in there at night. You don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know what’s going to happen or what to do with yourself. It’s just horrible."

A 12-year-old child who had been locked up, said: “I didn’t know they could do that to you…it was awful, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be ok.”

JFKL wants detention in police cells to be only used as a last resort and laws limiting the time children can be detained to be introduced. This also needs to be enshrined in strategies for police chiefs, the charity adds.

In one case last year a 16-year-old boy was detained for five days after a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Police forces and councils should set out plans on how they are to cut the number of children who are detained and better data collection is needed to hold police forces to account around the detention of children, according to JFKL.

“Children who come into contact with the criminal justice system are some of the most vulnerable in society, yet thousands are spending the night in police cells designed to hold adults suspected of criminal activity, leaving children feeling extremely distressed and vulnerable,” said Louise King, JFKL policy and campaigns director.

She is also concerned about the “significant racial disproportionality” in the detention of children in police cells.

“We need immediate action now, by all those responsible for safeguarding children and protecting their rights, to end this unacceptable and deeply unsafe practice,” she added.

Under the 2004 Children Act police and councils have a statutory duty to have regard for the safety, welfare and well being of children.

Meanwhile, the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act says that detention is only needed if “necessary”. Children who are refused bail when charged need to be transferred to more appropriate council accommodation, it adds.

Fiona Simpson

Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Youth offending services must “show greater consideration and confidence” in their work with young people and staff from ethnic minority backgrounds, the chief inspector of probation has said.

Despite one fifth of all young people and adults on probation being from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds Justin Russell’s annual report on probation finds “very little evidence of probation officers speaking to service users about their race, ethnicity or experiences of discrimination”.

“Some officers – by their own admission – avoided talking about these issues altogether,” Russell said.

Describing the findings as “disappointing”, he also notes “concerns about every stage of probation supervision from the quality of pre-sentencing reports to the way that minority ethnic service users were involved in their assessment and sentence plans”.

Some 40 per cent of cases looked at as part of the report were “insufficient in considering diversity factors”, the report states.

It adds that people, including young people, on probation reported “a lack of cultural understanding (and sometimes interest) within probation services and a reluctance to discuss related issues”. 

Meanwhile, inspectors heard distressing stories of inappropriate behaviour towards ethnic minority staff, including instances of stereotyping, racist and sexualised language, and false allegations, according to the report.

Ethnic minority staff were not always consulted or supported to work with individuals who had committed race-related offences, it states.

In response to the concerns, first raised in a thematic review published by the inspectorate last year, the probation service will develop a race equality strategy for people on probation, due to be published in March 2022, the report concludes.

Joe Lepper

Thursday, March 10, 2022

Offending rates among young women could rise more quickly due to the cost of living crisis compared with rates among young men, experts have warned. 

Increasing inflation, in particular the rising cost of energy and food bills, could see more women commit crimes due to poverty and economic need.

The warning has been made by the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ) coalition and the charity Agenda, who say that women under the age of 25 are among groups at greatest risk of unemployment.​

Black and ethnic minority young women and young mothers are at particular risk of poverty fuelled by inflation, they warn.

“Evidence suggests that the likelihood of offending as a result of poverty and economic need is set to continue for young women, perhaps at greater rates than for young men,” states a report by the two charities following a two-year research project into the justice system’s treatment of young women.

Other factors which lead to offending among young women include tackling their own trauma and abuse, poor mental health as well as alcohol and drug problems.

Just under three quarters of girls in youth custody had been permanently excluded from school, compared with around six in ten boys, says the charity’s report.

They add that almost all 17- to 25-year-old young women in the criminal justice system are victims of violence, abuse or trauma “which drives their offending”

These challenges are creating a “spiral of disadvantage”, which leaves vulnerable young women feeling excluded from support within the current youth justice system.

One young woman, who spoke to the charities, said: “I asked for help and I was just put at the back of the queue." Another said they felt like they were “at the bottom of the barrel”.

One 23-year-old women detailed racism within the youth justice system.

“It’s a bit mad how black people get looked at... Obviously [professionals] don’t really know our past, how we grew up... We all get put in the same category without no-one really looking at the ins and outs of why I am who I am today, or why things have turned out that way,” she told researchers.

Agenda and AYJ, which is a coalition of more than 70 charities and organisations, are calling for an overhaul of the criminal justice system. This is needed to ensure there is a better understanding of the challenges disadvantaged young women face, including poverty and a history of trauma, they say.

“Young women are being punished for their responses to trauma and the survival strategies they rely upon,” said Agenda chief executive Indy Cross.  

“They face a lack of understanding and recognition of their needs which means they feel disillusioned, disempowered and mistrustful of criminal justice agencies.”

The Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the plight of disadvantaged women in the criminal justice system, adds AYJ chief executive Pippa Goodfellow, who also wants to see them more involved in decisions around their support.

“Whilst young women have valuable insights and expertise to share, they are excluded from decision-making at every level – from decisions made about their individual care and support, to those which impact young women across all stages of the criminal justice system,” she said.

Justin Russell

Friday, October 22, 2021

If you work in youth justice, you will be all too familiar with the disproportionate number of black and mixed heritage boys in the system. 

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation has taken a closer look at the experiences of these boys and the support they receive from youth offending services and partner agencies. Overall, we found significant deficits in the quality of support. This was disappointing, especially when so many of these boys have complex and multiple needs. Half the boys in our sample had faced racial discrimination in their lives, a third had been victims of criminal exploitation, and a quarter had a disability. Yet we found many of these boys only received help for the first time when they came to the attention of youth offending services. Black and mixed heritage boys are more likely than their white peers to be excluded from school and are less likely to be referred to Early Help services. We have to ask why this is happening. Why are social services, education teams and other agencies not intervening sooner? Early detection of problems would have led to different outcomes for these children – so why are many of these children only receiving support with these needs for the first time through the criminal justice system. This is simply unacceptable. Our inspectors found pockets of good news. For example, Lewisham YOS is developing an anti-racist strategy. Manchester YJS runs joint training with magistrates to build understanding of their approach to working with ethnic minority children. Leeds YJS is involved in an innovative project regarding out-of-court disposals. We also found some practitioners formed good relationships with the children they supervise and their parents/carers, although there is a tendency to involve mothers more readily than fathers. However, the Inspectorate found some practitioners lack the confidence to talk to the boys and their families about discrimination, culture and the specific challenges they face because of their ethnicity. The impact of somebody’s ethnicity on their life is simply too important to ignore. A child’s experiences will affect their behaviour and motivations, as well as how they engage with youth justice services. For example, several of the boys spoke about their experiences of being stopped and searched by police – as often as four or five times a week. When Hackney Youth Offending Service asked police to examine a sample of local stop and search records for black boys in their borough, they found there were insufficient grounds for stop and search in two-thirds of cases. It is little wonder that some of these boys are left feeling negatively towards the justice system. Our report concludes with national recommendations for the Youth Justice Board, Home Office, Department for Education, police forces and local authorities including publication of local data on stop and search by age as well as ethnicity and that academy chains and local authorities should be held to account for monitoring racial disproportionality in the rate of permanent school exclusions.

Justin Russell is HM Chief Inspector of Probation 

Joe Lepper

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Inspectors have warned of “significant deficits” in support offered by youth offending teams, and their partners across social care and education, to black and mixed heritage boys. 

A report by the inspectorate of probation found that many of these boys face multiple disadvantages in their life, at school and with their mental health.

Inspectors found that 60 per cent of black and mixed heritage boys, who had received a court sentence, had previously been excluded from school and half had faced racial discrimination in their life.

Meanwhile, a third had been the victim of criminal exploitation and a quarter have a disability.

But despite these needs they are less likely than their white peers to be referred to early help services, inspectors found.

One boy told the inspectorate said: “It has an effect on me, how society views it as if your black and act in a certain type of way…you’re just thinking how come I get profiled because of the colour of my skin.”

Chief inspector of probation Justin Russell questions why support services are not intervening earlier to support black and mixed heritage boys.

“Youth justice staff told us the majority of black and mixed heritage boys that they work with have multiple and complex needs, for example with education or emotional and mental health issues,” said Russell.

“Yet many of these children are only receiving support with these needs for the first time through the criminal justice system. This is simply unacceptable."

He added: “Youth justice workers are united in the view that the early detection of problems would have led to different outcomes for these children. Instead, these boys are acquiring criminal records that can have lifelong consequences.”

A lack of confidence among support services to talk to the boys and their families about racism, culture and ethnicity is among concerns raised by the inspectorate.

It is also concerned around the use of stop and search tactics by the police, which are disproportionately targeting black and mixed heritage boys.

“Some of the boys we heard from had been stopped and searched by police four or five times a week,” said Russell.  

“These experiences affect how the boys interact with all parts of the criminal justice system – even those that are trying to offer support.”

According to latest government youth justice figures 41 per cent of children in custody in the year ending March 2020 are black or of mixed heritage.

The inspectorate’s report is based on a review of 173 cases from across nine youth offending services, as well as inspection data over the last year.

They make a total of 18 recommendations to government and local services to ensure boys are receiving help earlier and not being discriminated against.

The Home Office is being called on by the inspectorate to publish local and national stop and search data, broken down by gender, age and ethnicity.

Meanwhile, the Department for Education is being urged to bolster early help for black and mixed heritage boys with special educational needs.

Another recommendation for DfE is to improve guidance to schools to ensure that boys from these ethnic groups are not being disproportionately excluded.

Youth offending services need to strengthen their gathering of feedback from boys and their families. Managers in youth offending teams need to make sure they are “sufficiently focused on diversity”, the EPI report adds.

John Drew

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

I had in many ways a privileged middle-class childhood. As well as a smattering of rather poor exam results, my upbringing gave me huge dollops of unconscious bias, particularly in respect to people of different backgrounds, races and ethnicities. Over the last 50 years, I have worked at expunging this bias, often slowly and painfully. 

The government now thinks this is a waste of time. In December 2020, the Cabinet Office's “Nudge Unit” declared that “there is currently no evidence that this training changes behaviour in the long term”. For this reason, the Cabinet Office announced that unconscious bias training is to be “phased out in the Civil Service”. In the statement, the government makes it clear that this “phasing out” should be followed by local government, the police and the NHS – in other words, the whole statutory part of our systems.

Putting to one side the question of whether “nudge theory” itself has a convincing evidence base (the jury seems out on that), stray comments from within the government suggest this is not just an argument about proven effectiveness. Getting people to go on the record is difficult, but it seems clear that some ministers don't believe there is such a thing as unconscious bias. This is a strange position to adopt in respect of a system that is clearly biased against some groups of children. If this bias is not “unconscious”, then what is it, and why has it been allowed to continue across 11 years of government?

In government circles, talk about “affinity bias” appear more acceptable than “unconscious bias”. Tony Sewell, chair of the government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, admitted last month that “affinity bias in hiring often means those from diverse backgrounds find it harder to reach the boardroom”. “Affinity bias”, defined by the commission as occurring “when we treat people more favourably, simply because they are like us or other we like”, feels very similar to “unconscious bias”. Such bias is undoubtedly part of the reason why children from some diverse backgrounds find themselves massively over-represented in youth custody. A succession of case decisions, each possibly minor on their own but massively cumulative over time, place an “other” label on some children and propel them collectively towards prison at a speed three times that of other children.

Much needs to be done to reverse this trend. The Sentencing Bill's proposals in respect of the remand to custody of children, said to be one of the real “engines” for the over-representation of some groups of black and brown children in custody, may help significantly. Making this change is not just about changing the law. We need to change behaviour as well, especially raising awareness of how decision makers think about children, especially those who are “not like us”.

Learning about such bias in yourself is not comfortable. Perhaps that is why some say it should be binned. But it's a cental part of any strategy to reverse racial disparity.

• John Drew is former chief executive of the Youth Justice Board