The Metropolitan police has backed the senior detective who led the investigation into a black female officer convicted of possessing child abuse images after it emerged he had previously been named in allegations brought by another officer claiming victimisation on the grounds of race.

Last month, Supt Robyn Williams was convicted of receiving the unsolicited images. She now faces the sack after the investigation and prosecution, which some have criticised.

The Met dismissed claims of a potential conflict of interest for the senior investigating officer in the case, DCI Pete Wallis.

He was among a number of Met employees named in an earlier employment tribunal brought by Sonia Thompson, a Met detective, alleging race discrimination, harassment and victimisation.

Williams had provided support for Thompson in bringing the employment tribunal claims.

The tribunal made no critical finding against any of the Met officers and the case was formally brought against the force’s commissioner.

The claim was settled in February 2019, and stemmed from events as far back as 2016.

According to the judgment, the overall claim was settled after “the [Met’s] concession” to one allegation of victimisation made by Thompson. All other claims, some 36 allegations, were withdrawn, the judgment stated.

Leroy Logan, a former Met superintendent and former chair of the National Black Police Association, said: “This appears to be a potential conflict of interest. We need to know whether senior leaders of the Met were made aware and how they managed the risks involved.”

Williams, who was a co-founder of the National Black Police Association, had received the Queen’s Police Medal, was lauded for her work after the Grenfell disaster and was one of the UK’s most senior female African-Caribbean officers.

The Met said there was no conflict of interest for Wallis to declare. In a statement, it said: “The employment tribunal made no adverse findings in respect of any [of our] officers. We do not consider there to have been a conflict of interest to declare. The criminal aspects of the Supt Williams case were thoroughly investigated by the Met, with the Independent Office for Police Conduct being kept updated throughout, and with a file of evidence presented to the Crown Prosecution Service who made the decision to charge.”



“The Met investigates without fear or favour every day and the public rightly expects us to act when allegations of crime are reported to us, even more so when those allegations involve a police officer.”

Williams, 54, was found guilty by a jury in November after a controversial investigation and prosecution, that now sees her treated like a sex offender. She was sent the unsolicited video of a child being abused in February 2018 by her sister who wanted the paedophile responsible hunted down and caught.

Her sister sent it to 17 people via WhatsApp. The Old Bailey jury convicted Williams of having the video on her phone.

She insisted she never realised the video was there and that it was not clear, from a still from the video shown in her WhatsApp account, what it was about.

The jury unanimously acquitted her of failing to report the video for corrupt reasons, with the prosecution claiming it was because she feared her sister would get in trouble.

Her sister, Jennifer Hodge, 56, was convicted of distributing an indecent image of a child.

Williams has returned to work and is on restricted duties. She was sentenced to community service and placed on the sex offender register despite the prosecution accepting she had no sexual interest in children. She faces a fast track discipline process that could see her sacked in months but had lodged an appeal against her conviction.

The trial judge, when sentencing Williams, said the jury had “rejected” her account that she was unaware of the video being present on her phone.

Two witnesses who also received the video, which would have appeared as a “thumb nail” in the app, said they could not tell what it was until they played it.

Furthermore there is no evidence Williams ever did play the video.