Britain's biggest police force has “an awful lot to fix” after tolerating “horrific people” in its ranks, one of the force’s most senior officers has admitted.
“We deserve a better police service in London,” Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe said at the screening of a new documentary on the recent crises in the Metropolitan Police over its handling of women’s safety.
Assistant Commissioner Rolfe was appearing as part of a panel at a launch event for Rotten to the Core?, The News Movement's new documentary on London’s Met police and women’s safety in London after a series of crises.
The documentary looked at responses to crises including the convictions of former Met firearms officers Wayne Couzens, who kidnapped, raped and murdered 33-year-old Sarah Everard as she walked home, and David Carrick, a serial rapist among Britain’s worst sex offenders.
Assistant Commissioner Rolfe called Couzens and Carrick “Horrific people”, adding that she “felt physically sick” reading Whatsapp messages between Couzens and other officers joking about rape. She added that she had never read the messages before seeing them on screen during the event.
Speaking of her personal experience dealing with the Carrick case, she added: “I dismissed David Carrick. It was an administrative thing because he had already been convicted but it meant I read through his charges. I found that incredibly hard,” she said, adding that she had extensive experience in dealing with rape and sexual assault cases.
“These people were in our organisation and we tolerated things…We put too much value on people's skills and we didn't look enough at their behaviour, their values and their actions," she said.
“Fairness and justice is so important to us…but there’s an awful lot to fix,” she said, adding that the force was “investing in our critics” to better understand how to improve. Published to TNM’s YouTube channel, the 20-minute documentary examines the breakdown of trust between women and the Met police.
She was part of a four-person panel at the event at the Royal Society on Thursday, May 18. The other panel members were Dania al-Obeid, who is suing the Met for arresting her at a vigil for Sarah Everard; Farah Naz, whose niece was beaten and strangled to death by a stranger in the street in London and the broadcaster Sir Trevor Phillips, who has covered the Met for decades.
Dania was arrested and convicted of breaching Covid-19 regulations after attending an emotionally-charged vigil on Clapham Common in south London to remember Sarah Everard, who was snatched from the street, raped and murdered by off-duty police officer Wayne Couzens.
“It’s almost a double-edged sword,” she said after watching the documentary. “The experiences of abuse or harassment we experience has an impact on mental health - our physical health also. In my experience it’s been minimised so much,” she said, adding: “To hear that something’s being done that is healing,” Dania said.
Farah’s niece Zara Aleena was murdered by a repeat offender who followed her through the streets late at night, said: “People like us - it’s victims that change things. We have to speak up and I think actually it’s wonderful that we’re sitting here and watching this- it’s brilliant that you’ve made this [documentary] and hopefully we won’t be here again.
She said that she still felt “completely destroyed” by the murder but at the same time hopeful after watching the film.
Jordan McSweeney had been thrown out of a pub for harassing female bar staff before stumbling into a chicken shop and staring at another woman with his hands down his trousers. He harassed two other women - one of whom sprinted to get away - before murdering Zara. Nobody called the police.
In her interview with TNM for the documentary, Farah criticised the force’s recent failings on women’s safety and said that the lack of police presence in the streets of the capital had handed McSweeney a “licence to kill”.
Sir Trevor, who in the past has criticised the police for failing to take swift action against rogue officers, said: “There’s a battle between the people who want things the old way and those that want a new way.
“There’s an argument to be had and the rest of us have to be ready to try to help Louisa try to make the Met the place she wants it to be.
“One of the lines that really struck me was when Sarah Wolfe said: ‘They’re not one of us’
“What we need to do is get to a place where ‘one of us’ means Louisa and [Sergeant] Sarah Wolfe not Wayne Couzens and horrors like that.” He praised Sir Mark Rowley, the Met police commissioner, for being prepared to dismiss officers who failed to meet the force’s standards. “Fire their asses,” Sir Trevor added.
Asked what she thought of the documentary, Assistant Commissioner Rolfe said: “I thought it was really powerful…powerful because it’s based on people's personal experiences and powerful in terms of the scale of the task of rebuilding the Met.
“Hearing powerful stories will resonate for everyone in the Met. We’re not a business - we don’t make things - we employ people.
“We’ll only make progress when everyone can see that we need to change. I’m so grateful for you [TNM] providing such a powerful platform for change.
Asked if the force should use the word ‘institutional’ to refer to misogyny, homophobia and racism in the force, Assistant Commissioner Rolfe said it would be labelling all her officers as racist or homophobic and would be unfair to officers who are not.
Challenged by Dania, who said that “there’s a lot of bad apples, it’s not just one or two,” Rolfe responded: “We tolerated those people and we didn’t chuck them out.”
Farah said: “The Met is representative of society. We have toxic masculinity in our society.” Turning to Assistant Commissioner Rolfe she said: “If you say the words ‘our institution is rotten to the core’ - if you say that you can start again - we can start again as a society.”
Sir Trevor said that the police “even good people will join and they behave badly because they have to get esteem from their colleagues” referencing jokes about rape in Whatsapp messages shown in the documentary, he added that the force needed a clear idea of what makes a good police officer.