Murad Qureshi catalogues the many scandals blighting London’ s police

 When moving back into London, my family found ourselves in the early 1970s living in the streets where the Dixon of Dock Green myth was created after the war. It was also not far off from All Saints Rd, W10 where the Mangrove restaurant was regularly raided by the Met for illegal drugs. None were ever found yet the Met police kept raiding the establishment.  It subsequently ended up in Court with the charges against the Mangrove Nine dropped as it was acknowledged for the first time that race was an issue.

All this was happening while the Paddington Green Police station nearby had a reputation for beating up young Irishmen in the neighbourhood and closing pubs down which were allegedly sympathetic to the IRA.

These scandals still continue today in these Central London neighbourhoods, with the stop and search of a pair of leading athletes – Bianca Williams and Ricardo Des Santos in W9, now being internally investigated – and the ‘canteen culture” at Charing Cross Police station making their front counter pretty inhospitable for many local residents.  

This is before we add the misogyny, political corruption, homophobic murder investigations and of course, the long-standing accusation of institutionalised racism.  It’s not just the Sarah Everard case but the existence of  1,071 police officers and staff members with previous allegations of violence against women and girls. This makes it very difficult for the Commissioner to guarantee the safety of women when dealing with the police in London.

There is also the issue of political corruption, with the independent report into Daniel Morgan’s murder investigation from the 1980s and more recently the handling of the ‘partygate’ investigations.

Add to this the murder of four boys in Barking, where there was a clear pattern which the murder investigation never picked up until it was far too late. And finally there is of course the long standing accusation of institutionalised racism dating from the botched investigation into Stephen Lawrence’s murder.  

In 1829 Sir Robert Peel established the Metropolitan Police, the first such force in the world. It became the template for police forces elsewhere, organised according to the principle of law enforcement with the cooperation of law-abiding citizens. We clearly need to look at this again in light of the evidence from the events of recent years, as the Met’s image has now been tarnished globally.

Maybe it’s time to look at moving some of its functions away, such as the counter-terrorism and diplomatic protection services so it can concentrate on the policing concerns of Londoners like burglaries and cyber-crime. Already some local authorities in London are taking matters into their own hands with their own Law Enforcement Teams. 

There is a long way to go yet for this sorry mess to be sorted out, and it will take considerable time and effort before nine million Londoner start to trust the Met again.

Murad Qureshi was a member of the London Assembly from 2004 to 2016 and from 2020 to 2021.

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NDLALondon Knife Crime – Engelsk (SF) – NDLAVisitLicense detailsCreator: NEIL HALL, NEIL HALL | Credit: Reuters, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)