It will ‘take years’ to rid Met of corrupt officers as unit Couzens and Carrick served in has third of staff cleared out
19 September 2023, 1:20 | Updated: 29 February 2024, 7:47
Met police bosses have warned it will take years to rid the force of corrupt officers as they launch a major overhaul of staff.
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy has warned it will take years to get rid of officers who have breached standards or failed vetting.
About 1,000 officers in the Met Police are currently suspended or on restricted duties as they try to root out corrupt officers.
"This is going to take one, two or more years to root out those who are corrupt,” Mr Cundy said.
Some 60 officers could face the sack each month for at least the next two years in the clean-up - about 30 will face misconduct proceedings and 30 gross incompetence hearings.
At present, of the 34,000 in the Met’s workforce, 201 officers are suspended and 860 are on restricted duties.
"If you add those two figures together, that's over 1,000 police officers and that's nearly the size of a small police force in other places in the country. It is a significant number,” Mr Cundy added.
It comes as the Met announced on Tuesday that a third of its staff from the unit killer Wayne Couzens and serial rapist David Carrick served in have been cleared out in a major overhaul.
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Wayne Couzens, who was convicted of the rape, abduction and murder of Sarah Everard, and David Carrick, a serial rapist, both served in the parliamentary and diplomatic protection group (PaDP).
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Laurence Taylor said he hopes that more than two-thirds of the unit will consist of new staff by 2025.
He said that unhealthy work cultures had developed in the force, and added this was partly due to a lack of diversity, poor leadership and a sense of disconnection from the rest of the force.
A report published by the force on Tuesday said: “PaDP has to experience an absolute reset. It needs to be reformed with a new ethos and identity.”
It follows Baroness Louise Casey’s damning report into the Met Police earlier this year, which described the PaDP as “a dark corner of the Met where poor behaviour can easily flourish”.
Mr Taylor added: “The officers need to be better supervised, they need to be better trained, and they need to be better equipped."
Currently, 49 officers are accused of breaching standards - 12 for misconduct, 33 for gross misconduct and four public complaints.
Twenty-four officers are subject to restrictions, 11 have been suspended since October 2021, and more than 30 have had their firearms licenses removed.
In the wake of Carrick's life sentence for dozens of sexual offences, 1,600 cases were reviewed where officers had faced allegations of domestic or sexual violence over the past 10 years but no action was taken.
There are currently about 450 live investigations ongoing into the cases that were reviewed.
Tracy Blackwell from women's charity Refuge said: "The Baroness Casey Review painted a picture of a dysfunctional 'dark corner of the Met', that has allowed a deep culture of sexism, misogyny, racism, and ableism, to develop.
"While Refuge welcomes that some changes are being made, we are alarmed to see that only 11 police officers have been suspended, despite there being 33 officers accused of gross misconduct.
"This number is simply not good enough and does not do enough to protect women and girls from officers that use their powers to abuse.
"Refuge continues to call for the immediate and mandatory suspension of all police officers and staff accused of violence against women and girls, so that women and girls can have a restored trust in policing institutions.
"It is all very well to say change will happen by 2025, but it is simply not enough to 'rotate' officers out. They must be removed to stop the rot now."