Treatment of a Woman by Metropolitan Police

[LuluBlakey1]

I can barely believe the shocking article I have just read.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/24/met-apologises-to-academic-for-sexist-derogatory-language?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

To summarise:
For no reason other than she handed a 15 year old boy who was being arrested in a Stop and Search a card where he could ring the number to get legal advice, this woman was:
1.Arrested. (a court later said she had done nothing wrong) She refused to give police her name. She was taken to Stoke Newington Station

1. A Metropolitan Police Custody Sergeant, Kurtis Howard, gave orders for her to be strip searched .
2. CCTV shows him telling officers to show her “resistance is futile” and to search her “by any means necessary”. “Treat her like a terrorist,” he says. “I don’t care.”
3. In a cell, three female officers bound her by her hands and feet, pinned her to the floor and cut her clothes off with scissors. She described the ordeal, which left her with a number of visible injuries, as like a sexual assault.
4. Other male officers made remarks about the smell of her body and underwear, saying she was dirty and stank. The female officers made rude remarks alluding to the amount of her pubic hair. They discussed her needing fumigating, her clothes being filthy.
5. CCTV shows them taunting her while she is in a cell

The Met have lied about this and denied this behaviour for years when she complained. She has pursued the complaint relentlessly through solicitors and eventually the CCTV has been provided which has confirmed everything she said was true. It has taken 9 years to reach this point. Today they apologised.

Re:the strip search- In 2018 Kurt Howard appeared before a Metropolitan Police disciplinary panel, which cleared him of gross misconduct. He argued the search was necessary to assess any risk Duff might pose to herself, ('for her own mental health' was the phrase) and its chair concluded his actions were those of a responsible officer.

The Met are refusing to confirm if any officer has been disciplined.

The woman is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. She has had the resilience to pursue this for years and has eventually won her case. But:
a) How many times does this happen and women just put up with it?
b) How the fuck did the Met Police disciplinary committee conclude that Kurtis Howard's actions were 'those of a responsible officer'?
c) 3 of these officers were women- how disgusting is that?
d) Why are the Met being allowed to refuse to say whether anyone has been disciplined - they should ALL have been sacked.

No woman can expect to be safe with the Met. I truly believe that. There have been terrible examples in the last 18 months which show misogyny is absolutely endemic and accepted in the Met as part of how it operates. I can not remember being so upset by something - these are not weirdo officers carrying out an act alone on a street like Wayne Couzeyns. These are a group of 6 officers including a custody sergeant carrying out this assault and abuse in a police station.

I am writing to Cressida Dick about it- I will let you know if I get a reply.
I am writing to Pritti Patel (waste of time I know).
I am writing to Keir Starmer - I will let you know if I get a reply.
I am writing to my MP to ask him to raise this in the HoC - just because I have no idea what else to do.
Any ideas welcome.

I can believe it, all too sadly

Absolutely shocking.

Disgusting
Hope you get somewhere with the replies.

The Met is rotten. In the last 12 months we have had: Wayne Couzens, who was known to be a sex-buyer at his workplace, and who mysteriously happened to wipe his devices before he was arrested; a colleague of Wayne Couzens being prosecuted for sexual assaults; officers who took selfies with the bodies of murdered women and felt secure enough to post them on their work whatsapp group.

This is an institutional issue.

Ms Duff has written her own article today about her experience with the Met. It makes hard reading for any woman.
novaramedia.com/2022/01/24/the-met-just-apologised-for-strip-searching-me-i-dont-believe-a-word-of-it/

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

The Met is rotten. In the last 12 months we have had: Wayne Couzens, who was known to be a sex-buyer at his workplace, and who mysteriously happened to wipe his devices before he was arrested; a colleague of Wayne Couzens being prosecuted for sexual assaults; officers who took selfies with the bodies of murdered women and felt secure enough to post them on their work whatsapp group.

This is an institutional issue.

It absolutely is. I doubt Cressida Dick will bother to reply or any of the others but I am working on the letters and will come back with any responses. I imagine if there are any they will be brief, non-committal and devoid of content.

Thank you for posting this. I read this article earlier and was absolutely horrified.

It's astonishing how little attention it has had in the Press. It's horrible and the idea that this is how, not only male but also, femaile police officers behave is shocking. 9 years later and no one brought to any justice at all.

Tbe bbc interview was an extremely hard watch

Clear she was being re traumatised as she spoke.

They pulled out an earring and then said let's check for other piercings and so put their hands in her crotch.

I'd say it was sexual assault

Sorry it was the guardian filmed interview

I genuinely believe that Thames Valley Police aren't like this. Am I naive or is their culture better? What could change?

We need to stop putting police on a pedestal. They are people. Like everyone else. Good bad evil amd everything in between.

If men in particular ( although I'm.sure some women get a kick out if it all too, but some will just want to be " one of the guys" or not want to make waves) will hide in septic tanks and crawl spaces to access victims amd become drs they will definitely train as cops too. They get paid to walk around with power, speed in cars and get a weapon or 2 it's gonna attract a fair amount of people into that stuff .

People can be greedy, and corruptible and possess the urge to show off in front of friends in violent or cruel ways. That will go for police too.

Maybe of we stopped thinking of them as so special we won't be so surprised or disappointed when the inevitable happens

And Thames Valley?

Don't hold your breath. Theybare amongst the forces who failed ti recidivism sex crimes amd DV crimes properly. Last time I needed them I couldn't get past the call handler.

We are on our own

Record

That's awful. That poor woman.

What Scully said.

If men in particular ( although I'm.sure some women get a kick out if it all too, but some will just want to be " one of the guys" or not want to make waves) will hide in septic tanks and crawl spaces to access victims amd become drs they will definitely train as cops too. They get paid to walk around with power, speed in cars and get a weapon or 2 it's gonna attract a fair amount of people into that stuff .

Our police forces will always attract those least fit to have the power that comes with being a police officer. My personal metric to estimate the scale of the issue, whether it's a school, workplace or police force is how much do the bullies think they need to hide their behaviour?

The answer at the Met seems to be not at all. This cannot be handwaved away as a couple of unfortunate hiring decisions. It's not a couple of rotten apples, it's the whole fruit and vegetable aisle at the supermarket.

Thames Valley Police had to apologise to me having failed to dispatch a vehicle fast enough and somebody died. But there's the thing - they did apologise, fairly quickly.

Thank you to the woman who resisted. It is only by taking action that the methods of intimidation are exposed. When women are arrested for this and putting ribbons and stickers around , it really does show ingrained misogyny. For women to take part too is just awful...but all prt of the culture. I worry about a younger relative who has just started training with the Met..

Absolutely abhorrent, disgusting behaviour. 9. Fucking. Years!!!

Obviously they thought she needed some kind of punishment for daring to advise a young black man of his rights.

It takes a lot to make me weep. This did it.

This is unmitigated woman-hating.

This needs to be in AIBU for more womyn of Mumsnet to see.

That poor, poor woman.

Absoloutley horrific to read about and well done her for finding the strength to keep pushing at this.

The Met Police sound absoloutley terrifying .

Absolutely horrific.

Really upsetting and shocking to read this today...

Fucking hell, she is strong.

Defund the Police is starting to make sense to me now.

I had a row with my OH about police behaviour recently. He was very much of the same opinion as PPs - that these people will join the police, will join in and quite openly get away with it.

My argument is that we SHOULD be able to trust the police. We should trust them when we call them in an emergency, when we've been hurt or threatened or when they tell us that we're under arrest (whether rightly or wrongly). There should be systems in place to weed out the people who they know have the potential to hurt others. There will always be some who slip through the net, but why shouldn't we hold them to a higher standard of behaviour? They're the bloody police!!