Ten years of high-profile sexual assault complaints against Metropolitan Police have been made. The majority came from within the police.
The number of sexual offense complaints against London’s Metropolitan Police officers soared to a decade high in the year following the brutal murder of Sarah Everard, a Telegraph report on Sunday revealed. These complaints mostly came from other officers.
According to figures obtained by The Telegraph under Freedom of Information laws, 251 allegations of sexual assault, harassment or other sexual offenses were made against the Met’s officers and staff last year. There were 190 internal allegations made by fellow colleagues. This is an increase of 104% and 206% over 2010. Eighty-seven percent of the accused were men.
The Telegraph reports that the results are “shatter the record for the number of sexual assault allegations against the force’s personnel in a single year.”
The Met’s report on the scandal is yet another shocking headline. Wayne Couzens, a police officer, was sentenced to a life-long prison term for falsely imprisoning and raping Sarah Everard in March. An officer was later charged with the rape and murder of Sarah Everard while he was on duty. Last month, an additional 29 sex crimes were brought against Couzens.
A report from October revealed that the Met has the lowest success rate in solving sexual- and violent crime cases, amid growing allegations of officer misconduct.
“This data reinforces the mountain of evidence showing that the Met has a serious problem with institutional misogyny,”The Telegraph was informed by Andrea Simon, the director of End Violence Against Women Coalition. “While the increased number of recorded allegations may in part reflect greater awareness and inclination to report following high profile cases like the murder of Sarah Everard, the data does indicate the scale of sexual offending by Met Police officers.”
Report also highlighted the lack of punishments for sexual misconduct officers. The Telegraph was told by campaigners that misconduct cases are often handled by independent chairmen, who can be harshly punished. Only 11 of 217 staff and officers who received complaints last year were charged with any crime.
Throughout the Met’s recent scandals, the force has been led by Commissioner Cressida Dick. Dick, however, resigned this month saying that Sadiq Khan was the Mayor “no longer [had] sufficient confidence in my leadership.”Khan stated in a statement that he is “not satisfied” with Dick’s plans to purge the force of the “racism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny”The incident was identified in an independent report that was published one week prior.
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