Met Police are still failing victims

Today (15th August 2024), the police inspectorate has published its PEEL assessment (police efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy) of the Met Police force, which was put under special measures two years ago for systemic failings to victims.

The measures followed several high profile failings related to violence against women and girls (VAWG), including VAWG perpetrated by officers themselves. This includes the murder of Sarah Everard, the strip-search of Child Q, treatment of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, and a stream of other shocking revelations.

Ongoing failures, slow pace of change

While there have been action plans and initiatives for changing how the Met polices violence against women and girls, this latest report is a damning indictment of the ongoing failures to grapple with its issues – from institutional cultures of misogyny and racism to minimisation of offences of violence against women and children, failures to investigate properly, safeguard or assess risk.

While we’ve seen some green shoots of progress, including a review of Met Police officers’ previous sexual and domestic abuse related misconduct under Operation Onyx, and the work of Operation Soteria to move rape investigations towards focusing on suspects and away from victim-blaming and perceptions of whether a victim’s account is credible – the pace of change remains far too slow. It is not acceptable that two years after being put in special measures, the police inspectorate has found that the Met are not performing to a good standard in any area at all.

A long line of inquiries and reviews have highlighted ongoing failings

Today’s report reflects the findings of countless inquiries and reviews, from the Casey Review to the Baird inquiry and the recent Police Chiefs’ Council report, which highlighted institutional racism and misogyny in policing, routine arrest and stripsearch of domestic abuse victims seeking help, and the need for far better early identification of perpetrators and risk as well as greater focus on preventing harm to women and girls.

Despite violence against women now being a strategic policing priority, the police are still failing to adequately assess risk or do the very basics required to protect the public from known perpetrators, as evidenced in the recent inquiry into failings to stop the murder of Zara Aleena.

Worrying mismanagement of sexual offenders

The causes of concern identified in this report are longstanding: frontline women’s support services have identified issues relating to inexperienced officers investigating highly complex and sensitive cases such as sexual abuse; officers lacking specialism in investigating sexual offences; and the training in place not being fit for purpose. These must urgently be addressed if we are to ensure victims feel able to report abuse and bring perpetrators to justice.

With myriad plans to improve police practices still at an early stage of implementation, victims are not seeing these plans translate into better treatment and thorough investigations after they report. For example, failures to investigate and protect women and children from domestic and sexual abuse mirror what we have long known: women and girls are not being treated fairly or with dignity by the police and are largely still subject to victim-blaming, disbelief and dismissal when reporting. Some women are even criminalised and stripsearched when seeking police protection.

Black women, migrant women and others who are marginalised are at the sharp end of this mistreatment, with racism and other forms of discrimination deterring victims from reporting abuse; leaving offenders free to perpetrate with impunity. The End Violence Against Women Coalition echoes the calls of organisations led by and for migrant women in calling for a firewall between the police and immigration enforcement, so that everyone can report violence and abuse free from the fear that they will be detained as an immigration offender or even removed from the UK.

It is also concerning to see that the Met is not well-equipped to investigate sexual offences with an online element,  such as indecent imagery of children, given the rapid rise of online offending and the ways in which technology is increasingly being used by perpetrators to control and harm victims of domestic abuse. We need to see urgent action to ensure all officers are equipped to respond to these incredibly harmful forms of violence against women and girls, that victims are taken seriously when they report, and that they see justice.

A whole-society approach to ending male violence against women and girls

While we welcome attention on transforming the police response to victims, it is clear that we won’t end violence against women through policing alone. There are crucial roles for other agencies to play, including education to promote healthy relationships and sexual consent, regulation of the tech companies that facilitate and profit from online abuse and spread misogynistic content, and public campaigns to tackle and shift the harmful attitudes that normalise and trivialise VAWG.

Policing is an important element of the response to VAWG, but it must be part of a whole-society approach to ending this abuse, which focuses on preventing harm rather than solely responding after the harm is done. The new government’s ambition to halve VAWG within a decade is welcome, but to get there it needs to follow a road-map that puts prevention at the heart of its plans, funds specialist support services, defends our rights and addresses the inequalities driving this abuse.

Andrea Simon, Executive Director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW), said:

“Today’s report further highlights that the Met has a long way to go to address the significant ways it fails victims, particularly women and girls subjected to male violence. In two years, we would have expected to see some meaningful progress made towards eradicating the force’s institutional misogyny and racism, and the ways in which officers systematically minimise forms of male violence including stalking, domestic abuse, sexual offences and online abuse. But we are instead presented a picture of a force still failing to equip its officers in safeguarding, assessing risk of violence and harm, supporting victims of abuse sensitively, and carrying out the very basics of investigations.

Given a huge proportion of incidents reported to the police relate to domestic or sexual abuse, it is clear the vast majority of victims are being let down and failed. This is just not good enough.

While we welcome some of the work to improve rape investigations and root out officers who have no place in the force, the pace of change is too slow and too many women and girls are being harmed while progress stalls.

The police hold a particular position of power and authority over the public and must be held to the very highest standards of accountability. We keep hearing police leaders talk about efforts to ‘rebuild trust and confidence in policing’ but this is the wrong approach. Trust and confidence will come as the result of evidence of an improved service and better treatment of victims.

We hope today’s report is a wake up call that spurs leaders at all levels in the Met and in police forces across the country to prioritise the transformation needed to deliver justice and accountability for victims of male violence against women and girls.”

ENDS

Media contact

Sinead Geoghegan, Head of Communications, media@evaw.org.uk 07960 744 502