largeLouise Casey Has been telling the truth throughout her career. As head of the Rough Sleepers Unit founded by Tony Blair, she observed that handing out soup and top-of-the-line sleeping bags made it easy for people to stay on the streets. After launching a scheme for troubled families under David Cameron, she berated left-wing “do-gooders” for arguing that anti-social behavior could be tackled with more youth clubs. Theresa May, who was commissioned to write a review on integration, said she was “tired of some male version of Islam: telling women what to do”.
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Mrs Casey was as usual in her report on the Metropolitan Police’s “culture and standards” released on March 21. In 2021, a young woman, Sarah Everard, was abducted, raped and murdered by a serving Metropolitan Army officer, Wayne Couzens, from William McPherson (William Macpherson) published another landmark report in 1999, the most scathing assessment of the UK’s largest police force. McPherson found at the time that the Met’s mishandling of the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence betrayed “institutional racism.” Mrs Casey said there was still plenty of evidence to suggest this. But she concluded that the Met is also “institutionally homophobic” and “institutionally sexist and misogynistic.”
It doesn’t take her report to reveal that Mr Couzens – and his employer’s failure to identify him as a dangerous predator – is indicative of wider corruption. The case was followed by a series of horrific revelations, including that one of Britain’s most prolific rapists was a Metropolitan officer who served in the same parliament as the Diplomatic Protection Command (PADP) as Mr. Couzens. Yet Mrs. Casey’s investigation vividly illustrates the scale and horror of the Met’s dysfunction.it describes PADP As “a dark corner of Metropolis,” morale is low and prejudice festers. (One of the unit’s black officers was dubbed “The Door Monkey.”)
Failure is universal. Unlike London, the Met remains “predominantly white and male”. The review found that female new hires are currently quitting at four times the overall quitting rate. Austerity policies have damaged front-line policing and have had a particularly dire effect on the way sex crimes are dealt with. The review was told that a murder investigation required “a full team of experienced and professionally trained detectives, and a woman who had been raped and left in a coma would likely be dealt with by a trainee detective constable”. The report is filled with such horrific details; testimonies from victims and officials have asterisks in place of swear words.
A former colleague of Mrs Casey once said that no other public servant would go downhill to find out why someone was homeless. Her unusual route into the institution may help explain this. She and her brother were the first members of her family to go to college. Her first job was at reception at the Department of Health and Social Care (where Brits apply for benefits). The poverty she saw there prompted her to find a job working with the homeless. It was as deputy director of the charity Shelter that she was recruited by the Labor Party to be homeless czar. In 2020, she was appointed by the head of the civil service as a cross-parliamentary (i.e. non-partisan political) MP so that she could speak “without fear or favoritism”, he said.
That may not be necessary. Mrs. Casey was particularly outspoken at a press conference, lashing out at some of the most egregious violations by the Met officials she was then employed at: including an officer who publicly masturbated on a train. That doesn’t happen in other professions, she said. “It gives you a headache.”
Reports can be praised and then quietly ignored, she said. But her reform proposals – from new misconduct processes to changes to governance structures – include reviewing some key measures after two and five years. If the Met doesn’t increase public trust, take more action against misconduct, raise rates and increase diversity in its workforce, it should consider a complete restructuring. She said she would watch carefully. As always, she meant it. ■
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