20 February 2024 , 14:10
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Fourteen Metropolitan police officers from the same station are being investigated after racist WhatsApp messages were shared.
Members of the response team at Camden Police station, covering Camden and Islington, have been put on desk-duties, the Mirror understands, while an inquiry into potential gross misconduct in carried out. The response team comprises officers who are first in line to be dispatched in response to 999 calls.
Most of the officers were placed on restricted duties when the probe was launched after vile racist messages came to light in which allegedly severe Islamophobic and misogynistic language was used.
The messages were understood to have been sent by one officer in a WhatsApp group that had been created for a night out and been Islamophobic and misogynistic in nature.
The incident was referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct, who determined it should be investigated, with oversight from the Met themselves. Of the 14 officers, 12 have been placed on restricted duties, away from the public, another is already in a non-public facing role and one officer remains not on restricted duties.
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Former Scotland Yard Superintendent Nusrit Mehtab said that the latest probe showed that "nationally, policing is in crisis". She warned Islamophobia was not being taken seriously and also highlighted the recent revelations in Nottingham over officers sharing information of injuries following last June's horrific attack.
Commander Owain Richards, in charge of Frontline Policing for the area, said: "These are very serious allegations and a professional standards investigation was launched as soon as this came to light on Wednesday, 14 February. Discriminatory language of any kind will not be tolerated and action will be taken against any officer where the investigation establishes evidence of wrongdoing."
The disgusting messages come as the Met Police still scrambles to clean up its image and root out crooked and vile coppers. Late last year Sir Mark Rowley said it was "nonsensical" that he couldn’t sack badly behaved police officers to clean up the force.
As recently as three days ago he was railing against misogyny online and voicing his fury when his own officers faced it. On February 17, he issued a strongly worded statement after Commander Karen Findlay was subjected to online abuse after being appointed as the new Assistant Chief Constable of the British Transport Police.
It was revealed over the weekend that Nottingham police officers shared graphic details of the injuries of the three stabbing victims on a WhatsApp group - beloved Grace O'Malley-Kumar was one of the dead (PA)In it, he said: "I am angry. My colleagues are angry. It isn’t acceptable and it’s happening too often." Some of the vile messages the new police boss faced were similar to that which Met officers themselves have been sending.
This weekend it emerged police officers were the subject of a misconduct hearing after sharing graphic details of the injuries of the three Nottingham stabbing victims, on a WhatsApp group.
Students Grace O'Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber and school caretaker Ian Coates were horrifically attacked and killed by Valdo Calocane in June last year in an incident that shocked the city. But in the aftermath, an unnamed officer shared details of their injuries via a WhatsApp message, and a second officers, PC Matthew Gell, passed these onto his wife and a friend.
The heartbroken families of the victims described it as "abhorrent". Barnaby's mum, Emma Webber, 51, said: "What an abhorrent way to conduct an investigation. We cannot emphasise how painful this tragedy is for all our families, and to learn that there has been internal needless voyeurism of the vicious knife attacks on our loved ones is unforgivable. We were not, at any point, made aware of this [data breach]."
Former Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said: "This is absolutely shocking."
One police officer who was guarding Sarah Everard's body was removed from duty after allegedly sending inappropriate messages (PA)The case bore similarities to the aftermath of Sara Everard's murder, where a Met Police officer was removed from their duties after allegedly sending an "inappropriate" WhatsApp message whilst guarding the scene where her body was found. She had been abducted and killed by serving Met policeman Wayne Couzens, who himself had joked with colleagues about rape on WhatsApp.
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Baroness Louise Casey's recent report into the standards of behaviour and internal culture of the Met found messages declaring "I would happily rape you" and repeated jokes about domestic violence alongside alarming cases racism and sexism. One such exchange grimly read: "I would happily rape you. If I was single I would actually hate f*** you. If I was single I would happily chloroform you."