Casey Review: Hackney Council ‘appalled’ by Metropolitan Police’s systemic failings

The Child Q scandal sparked protests in Hackney. Photograph: Julia Gregory

Senior Hackney politicians said they are “appalled after the Casey Review detailed a damning litany of failures by the Metropolitan Police including institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Commenting on the Casey Review, Hackney’s Mayor Philip Glanville and Cabinet member for community safety, Susan Fajana-Thomas, said: “The review is a stark and disturbing litany on why trust in the Metropolitan Police is at an all-time low and why there is a growing gap between the police and London’s diverse and sometimes marginalised communities. ”

It details shocking cases of racism, homophobia amd misogyny, including a Sikh officer forced to have his beard shaved off,  bacon put in the shoe of a  Muslim officer and a female officer who tried to kill herself after she was raped, only to have her request for a transfer refused.

The Casey Review found unacceptable cultures had been allowed to flourish and discrimination tolerated whilst the experiences of officers from the Black and Global majority, women and LGBTQI+ staff  are ignored.

Baroness Casey of Blackstock called for some units to be disbanded, with a new independent unit dealing with disciplinary issues.

Other recommendations include a women’s protection unit, following the murder of Sarah Everard and sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, and training for officers about “adultification” where adults treat youngsters, especially Black and global majority young people as threats rather than in need of protection.

It also calls for the rebuilding of borough-based policing and changes to policies such as stop-and-search.

The Hackney politicians said in a statement: “We know the Met still does not look like or represent the people it serves. It’s what communities here in Hackney have known and have told us for decades. Black and Global Majority communities in particular have fought to be heard. We have fought to platform them: most recently providing experience and observation of policing in Hackney to help inform Baroness Casey’s work. ”

Last year the community was outraged to learn that a black teenage girl, known as Child Q,  was strip-searched by police at her school. Adultification is said to have played a part in what happened.

Mayor Glanville and Cllr Fajana-Thomas said: “In Hackney, we know there is a long shadow of multigenerational pain and trauma that has been caused and perpetuated by a police force that persistently stereotypes, wrongly criminalises and disproportionately hurts through excessive force the Black communities of Hackney – especially our boys and young men.

“This report vindicates them. Now, Londoners are left asking if the force is fit for purpose at all; with policing by consent at serious risk of collapse. “

Hackney’s former borough commander Marcus Barnett joined a team at the Met  last year, tasked with helping get it out of special measures.