Force faced more than 240 complaints over 12-month period but found no case to answer as black police chief says Met is not learning from previous lessons

Metropolitan police officers faced more than 240 complaints of racial discrimination over a year but none of these was ultimately upheld, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.

A freedom of information disclosure shows that it was concluded there was no “case to answer” in any of the complaints submitted – a figure that the chair of the body representing black police officers said was implausible.

DS Janet Hills, chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, described it as “an awful scenario”.



“It’s not credible. It is disappointing that the Met are not learning from previous lessons,” she said. “The fact that not one [officer] has been sanctioned, I don’t think they are getting what they have been asked to look at.”

The force defended the blanket exoneration, saying complaints were often due to “a simple misunderstanding or poor communication”.

Privately, some Met chiefs wonder how the disproportionately white force can retain its legitimacy while using coercive powers to police a city with a growing ethnic-minority population. Just 11% of Met officers are from an ethnic minority, compared with 40% of Londoners.

Hills added: “It’s not good for community confidence. We’ve got to start getting it right. We need the community to trust us.”

The figures show that of 245 complaints of racial discrimination that were concluded from March 2014 to February 2015, no action was taken in 240 of the cases. In the remaining five, the Met took “management action”, which it says is “not a formal misconduct outcome but is considered to be part of the normal managerial responsibility of managers in the police service”.

The figures show that several officers had more than one complaint against them – with five unnamed officers each facing three or more allegations of racism in the 12-month period – none of which resulted in any action.

A spokesperson for the London Campaign Against Police and State Violence, which obtained the figures, said: “This evidence only further underlines the perceived futility of complaining to a police force that, according to both its own black officers association and commissioner, is still ‘institutionally racist’.

“[The Met is] shown to be effectively immune from any accountability. We need a truly independent body that carries the confidence of the communities affected by police abuses of power. The police cannot be trusted to investigate themselves.”

Labour’s London assembly spokesperson on policing, Joanne McCartney, said: “While without the details of these cases it’s hard to tell how far each of these complaints went, I am surprised that so few of these allegations have led to any disciplinary action. If we are to build a police force which maintains the trust of all communities, the Met needs to do more to encourage complainants to come forward and weed out racism in its ranks.”

The Met defended its record, insisting it had “a clear professional standards policy” and did “not tolerate discrimination in any form”.

In a statement, it said: “If potential misconduct is identified then ‘management action’ can be adopted in preference to instigating disciplinary proceedings where a more timely, advisory and preventative approach is the most appropriate way forward – taking into account the nature of the complaint.”

The Met said that it employed more than 30,000 officers and “public complaints alleging discrimination are made against only a very small proportion”.

It added: “It should be recognised that a significant proportion of complaints of this nature arise due to a simple misunderstanding or poor communication and can therefore be resolved locally – quite appropriately. [The Met] takes all such allegations seriously and considers its approach to such allegations as proportionate and consistent.”