Photo Credit / Dailymail.co.uk / Corbis / Matthew Styllanou / Former London Met Police Officer Carol Howard won a race and sex discrimination claim against the department and was awarded £37,000 in 2015. Later in May 2018, Howard lost the race claim as the Court reversed the 2015 decision.

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The London Metrolpolian Police continues continues to grapple with charges of racism and sexism as the U.K. seeks to add 17,000 Black officers to “reflect British society.” A public inquiry held in 1998, headed by Sir William Macpherson, that examined the original Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) investigation into the death of Stephen Lawrence issued a damning report concluding the force was ‘institutionally racist’.  Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack in 1993 by a gang of white youths as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, with a friend. The case became a cause célèbre and one of the highest profile racial killings in U.K. history. After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but not convicted. It was suggested during the course of that investigation that the murder was racially motivated and that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service was affected by issues of race.

Credit: Wikipedia

Years later, the Metropolitan Police is still struggling to shake off the institutionally racist label that remains tightly wrapped around the department. In 2015, the Met acknowledged ‘some justification’ to claims the force is ‘racist’ according to the BBC.

“ You’re very much more likely to be stopped and searched  if you’re a young black man… I can give you reasons, but I
can’t fully explain it,”

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, head of Metropolitan Police, BBC.com

Metropolitan Police Grapples With ‘Institutionally  Racist Label’ 25 Years After Death Of Stephen Lawrence 

Source wikipedia commons / / In 2012, nearly 20 years after the death of Stephen Lawrence, (above photo) two men, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were found guilty of the 1993 racist murder of Lawrence and were jailed for life.

Stephen Lawrence was a black British teenager from Plumstead, south east London, in the United Kingdom who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall, Eltham on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre; its fallout included cultural changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder in 2012. After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but not charged. It was suggested during the investigation that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service was affected by issues of race. A Public Inquiry was ordered by the  UK government after his murder, labeled  “the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry”.  The investigation,  led by retired judge Sir William Macpherson, published its findings on 24 February 1999 in a nearly 400 page document. The inquiry concluded that the MET Police force was institutionally racist. Many are of the  opinion that little has changed inside the MET since the 1999 report.

“I get the sense there isn’t the urgency around tackling incidents of racial harassment or racial abuse in the way that there was,” says Clive Efford, the MP here since 1997. “I think as you get further away from an incident as serious as the murder of Stephen Lawrence it has dulled the senses,”

UK Guardian Apr. 21, 2018 .

Deep Wounds Slowly Healing 25 Years After Lawrence Murder

On 23 April 2018, at a memorial service to mark the 25th anniversary of his death, Prime Minister Theresa May announced that “Stephen Lawrence Day” would be an annual national commemoration of his death on 22 April every year starting in 2019. Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence made a statement that Stephen Lawrence Day would be “an opportunity for young people to use their voices and should be embedded in our education and wider system regardless of the government of the day.

Number of Black and minority MET police officers stand at just 5 percent

Source: Wikipedia public domain. /  Scotland Yard Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, the territorial police force responsible for policing most of London. The Met is the largest police force in the UK, and one of the largest in the world.

With estimates suggesting the BME population of England and Wales will be 14 per cent by 2026, the service would need to recruit 17,000 officers from those communities in order to achieve a more representative profile, the Telegraph reported. Out of almost 130,000 full time police officers in England and Wales, just 6,500 came from an ethnic minority, representing a mere five per cent, according to The Telegraph. Speaking at the National Black Police Association’s (NBPA) annual conference, Assistant Chief Constable Richard Bennett said the service needs to recruit 17,000 BME officers to be representative of the population by 2024.

One in four new recruits into the Police Service must be from a black or ethnic minority community if policing is to be truly representative of the population in ten years’ time,  according to a senior officer, Assistant Chief Constable
Richard Bennett.

Black Female MET Officer Claimed Racist and Sexist Harassment in Lawsuit

Credit:  (Photo by Nick Ansell/PA Images via Getty Images)   MET Police officer Carol Howard claimed she was discriminated against because of her race and sex.

Former Scotland Yard Police Officer Was A Rising Star In MET’s  Elite Diplomatic Corps

Photo Source / Daily Mail.com /Corbis / Matthew Styllanou / Former London Met Police Officer Carol Howard won a race and sex discrimination claim against the department and was awarded £37,000 in 2015. Howard is photographed with her Heckler & Koch semi-automatic rifle capable of firing up to 800-rounds per minute.

The Met really blew it with 35-year-old PC Carol Howard. With her cover-girl looks, yet steely persona, PC Howard was a literal poster woman for a more diverse London police force. Howard moved up the ranks during her 10 years with the Met, eventually joining the elite Diplomatic Protection Group, guarding VIPs including the Prime Minister. Howard exemplified the type of tough police officer assigned to protect London during the 2012 Olympics. Howard claimed her career came crashing down around her in late 2012 when she was assigned a new superior, David Kelly, who singled her out and harassed her for almost a year. Howard claimed Kelly constantly reprimanded her in an aggressive manner in front of colleagues, “telling me I wasn’t up to their standard.” Howard was the only black woman on the elite DPG team and only one of two in the entire DPG. Howard lodged a formal complaint against Kelly, who she claimed then retaliated with an intimidating verbal attack.

‘He cornered me, pointed his fingers in my face and shouted at me in a threatening manner. He was carrying his Glock pistol, and I was genuinely frightened about what he would do. By the time I left, I was in tears,’

Carol Howard told the Daily Mail.

“I was so proud that I’d made it as a firearms officer, but then it was wrecked. I couldn’t understand why, and why nobody listened when I tried to speak out. The Met just dismissed me, as if nothing I was saying mattered,” former London PC Howard as told to Daily Mail.

In 2014, an employment tribunal ruled that the Metropolitan Police department’s treatment of PC Howard was ‘malicious and oppressive.’ The tribunal ruled Howard had been discriminated against because she was black and a woman and awarded her £37,000 including aggravated damages. Howard eventually left the police force.

Judge Reverses Former London MET Officer’s Race Discrimination Award

Credit: Dailymailco.uk, Evening Standard / In May 2018,  Judge Joanna Wade dismissed all 33 of Miss Howard’s allegations and said her claims to be the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ were unfounded. She is pictured arriving at a separate hearing in 2014.

The judge said of Howard:

‘We are left with the uncomfortable conclusion that the claimant has an unshakeable but incorrect belief that if she does not like what is happening or is prevented from doing the work she chooses, this is discrimination [or] victimisation.”  Wade also said Howard’s judgement throughout “was very poor.”

Howard said she was unfairly probed by the Information Commissioner after allegedly downloading sensitive information from the IPCC after she had left the organisation.

“The white managers I worked with are not independent and believe that their duty is not to investigate wrongdoing officers but to protect the reputation of the police force concerned and its senior officers in particular. They are corrupt,” Howard.