The report of Baroness Casey on the force’s culture and standards is expected to heavily criticise the Metropolitan Police for being racist, sexist and homophobic.
Baroness Casey was appointed to review the force after the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens.
Couzens was a Met Police officer when he abducted, raped and murdered Ms Everard in March 2021, and now serves a whole-life term. Victims of indecent exposure by serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens have said he could have been stopped from murdering Sarah Everard if their reports had been properly investigated.
Baroness Casey’s review will be published on Tuesday. However, it is already expected that the report will heavily criticise the Met’s tolerance of wrongdoing as well as how they protect their own people ahead of the public.
A government source told the BBC the findings of the draft report were “very serious” and would make for “bad reading”.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been in talks with the Met Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, this week about the findings after it is understood the final draft of the report was sent to them.
Sir Mark Rowley was appointed commissioner in September and even after the critical report is published next week, the Home Office will back his leadership to reform the Met and bring about change, and wants to give him the time to do so.
The force is already facing a separate independent inquiry into how Couzens and the serial rapist officer David Carrick were able to become policemen and were not identified as threats to women.
The interim Casey review which was published in October found hundreds of Met officers had been getting away with breaking the law and misconduct.
It found many claims of sexual misconduct, misogyny, racism and homophobia had been badly mishandled.
Sir Mark Rowley apologised and admitted there were officers still serving who should have been sacked.
While the interim report focused on the failures of the force’s internal misconduct system, this final report is expected to be much wider. It has examined, and will criticise the culture, recruitment, training and leadership of the force.
One source told the BBC the final report contained a lot of findings that were extremely bad for the Met.
The Met Police said in a statement “the report will play an important role in informing and shaping our work to deliver ‘More Trust, Less Crime and High Standards’.
“It will be published next week which will be the appropriate point for us to respond in further detail.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary has been clear that culture and standards in policing must be raised in order to regain the trust and confidence of the public. We await the publication of Baroness Casey’s full report.”
(Source: BBC)
