UK PM urges 'robust' response to 'shocking' police misconduct report

LONDON (AFP) — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday called for a “robust” response by the head of London’s under-fire Metropolitan Police after a BBC undercover report showed officers using excessive force and making racist and misogynistic comments.

The expose is the latest embarrassment for the Met which had pledged to clean up its act after a string of shocking scandals.

“I’ve not yet seen the footage, but I’ve had it described to me, and it’s shocking, and I’m glad the commissioner is responding. He needs to be very robust in his response,” Starmer told reporters ahead of a meeting with European leaders in Copenhagen.

BBC reporter Rory Bibb spent seven months until January 2025 working in a civilian role as a detention officer in the custody suite of Charing Cross police station in central London.

The resulting BBC Panorama documentary, aired on Wednesday, exposed officers making misogynistic, racist and Islamophobic remarks, as well as using excessive force.

Metropolitan Police chief Mark Rowley condemned the behavior as “completely reprehensible.”

Anyone viewing the footage would be “upset and angry … seeing the racism, the misogyny and the sort of relishing in using excess force on people who’ve been arrested”, he said, adding that he was working urgently to have the officers dismissed.

He said that following contact with the BBC ahead of the program 10 officers and staff had been suspended.

“They are suspended, they are not anywhere near the public any more, but I want them off the payroll and gone as quickly as possible,” he told BBC radio.

The custody team at the Charing Cross station featured in the report has been disbanded, according to Rowley.

Torn reputation

During the reporter’s time undercover, “officers called for immigrants to be shot, reveled in the use of force and were dismissive of rape claims,” the BBC said in a statement.

Several male police officers were secretly filmed making shocking statements, including that a detainee who had overstayed his visa should have “a bullet through his head,” and that migrants from Algeria and Somalia were “scum.”

The reputation of U.K. policing has been in tatters since the 2021 kidnap, rape and murder of marketing executive Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer who was later jailed for life.

In another shocking case, an officer from the same unit last year received 36 life sentences for a “monstrous” string of 71 sexual offences, including the rapes of 12 women.

In the year to March 2024, nearly 600 officers in England and Wales were sacked.

The Met alone in January 2023 revealed that 1,071 officers in the 40,000-strong force of staff and officers had been under investigation for domestic abuse and violence against women and girls.

England and Wales has a police workforce of more than 147,000 across the 43 forces.

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By HELEN ROWE with MAX DELANY in Copenhagen, Agence France-Presse