The off-duty Metropolitan Police man who murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021 ‘was never fit to be a police officer’, Lady Elish Angiolini has said on the publication of the first report in her Inquiry.
Police leaders need to be sure there isn’t another such officer, ‘operating in plain sight’, and without a ‘significant overhaul’, there is nothing to stop another such officer, she said, noting the damage ‘done to the social contract on which policing is based’.
Part one of the Inquiry was to examine the facts and circumstances of the case of the murderer and the cultures in which he worked. Police recruitment and vetting failed to spot red flags about the man’s unsuitability, Angiolini said.
She said: “Policing is however, not a homogenous whole. Pockets of different cultures exist within police forces, and police culture is something that will be examined during Part two. Good police officers work alongside those who abuse their powers, behave inappropriately with their colleagues and do a disservice to the profession of policing,” she said. Part two is under way and the terms of reference include ‘a broader, national consideration of police vetting and recruitment, police culture and standards and the protection of women in public spaces. This includes other tragic cases of femicide in public spaces,’ she said.
She said she found it ‘astonishing’ that even after the officer’s arrest, and a review of his vetting clearance, the Metropolitan Police Service told the Inquiry in 2022 that they would still have recruited him if provided with the same information. She noted the ‘known under-reporting of sexual offences’, and ‘poor’ police investigation of reports of indecent exposure. She said: “In 2015 a member of the public telephoned Kent Police having just seen a man driving a car while indecently exposing himself. This same witness gave the police the make, model, colour and registration number of the car, information that was confirmed by Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras” – and checks by the police identified the registered keeper of the car. “However, despite having his home address and knowing that he was the only male insured to drive the car, Kent Police closed the case and took no further action.” Police did so without any attempt to speak to a witness or to the man himself, “a grave error and a very obvious red flag,” Angiolini said.
As for vetting, initial vetting when the man applied to join the Metropolitan Police (from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, where he was an armed officer – the CNBC is 100 per cent armed) in 2018 was also flawed, she reported. The man failed at interview in his application for Kent Police in 2004. He joined Kent Special Constabulary as a volunteer constable in 2006. Red flags were repeatedly ignored, Angiolini said, such as the man’s ‘history of excessive spending and personal debt’. The Inquiry had evidence that the man ‘allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child (barely in her teens) before his policing career even started. Problems with money also pre-dated his career with the police.” The man has since his conviction for the murder of Sarah Everard been convicted of further crimes of indecent exposure, and other ‘allegations were charged but remain on file’.
In a foreword, she wrote that ‘policing needs to grasp fully the extent of the cultural problems it faces and the way that this affects the public it serves’.
Among the report’s recommendations, it asks that ‘police forces should ensure that they have a specialist policy on investigating all sexual offences, including so-called ‘non-contact’ offences, such as indecent exposure’; and for an awareness-raising public campaign ‘about the illegality/criminality and legal consequences of any type of indecent exposure’. On the vetting side, among the recommendations are that ‘every new candidate applying to become a police officer in any police force undergoes an in-person interview and home visit’, ‘to provide a holistic picture of the candidate’. The report asks for a review ‘of the link between debt, mental health, vulnerability to corruption and suitability to be a police officer, to inform vetting decisions’. Around decision-making in vetting, the report asks for ‘greater professional rigour and curiosity’; and information-sharing where someone applies for the police from the armed forces and other uniformed agencies. The report points to barriers ‘police officers and staff face when reporting sexual offences’ in the workplace.
About the Inquiry
In November 2021 the then Home Secretary Priti Patel appointed Lady Elish Angiolini as chair of the Inquiry. For more on the Inquiry and to read the 360-page part one report, visit https://www.angiolini.independent-inquiry.uk/.
Comments
For the statement by the Home Secretary James Cleverly on the Angiolini inquiry in the House of Commons, visit UK Parliament’s Hansard website. In reply, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described herself as ‘sick and tired of women and girls who face abuse and violence not getting support, while perpetrators get away with it’.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the report as ‘an urgent call to action for all of us in policing. We must go further and faster, to earn back the trust of all those whose confidence in policing has been shaken by events of recent years.’
In a statement, Lambeth Council Leader Claire Holland called on the Met Police and the Government ‘to finally get to grips with a culture that allowed this officer to operate and one that has previously been found to institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic – and in need of radical reform’. She said: “We will also be working hard alongside our local communities to hold the Met Police to account, to re-double our efforts to tackle violence against women and girls and seek the social change we need to guarantee the safety and equality our borough needs.”
Information Commissioner John Edwards, who contributed to the inquiry, said that data protection law does not stand in the way of police sharing information about a potential recruit’s previous disciplinary action or warnings, nor does it act as a shield against investigations into police officers.
For the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, APCC Joint Victims Leads, Sophie Linden (London) and Caroline Henry (Nottinghamshire) said the report lay bare the repeated failures over 20 years and by multiple forces that enabled the serving police officer, to indulge in his predatory and dangerously deviant behaviour towards women. They said: “Nothing less than a transformation is needed in the police’s approach to indecent exposure and other non-contact sexual offences, and in the quality of police investigations into such crimes. Policing must take this opportunity for change if victims of sexual crimes are to feel they can report incidents to the police safe in the knowledge their allegations will be properly and seriously investigated.”
