DElish Angiolini was tasked by then Home Secretary Priti Patel to investigate the horrific abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Cousins in March 2021. Two years later, last Thursday, her 347 pages Report published. Mr Angiolini, Scotland’s former Lords Defender, praised Mr Everard’s family’s “grace in suffering” before issuing his most blunt warning yet.
“Without a major overhaul, there’s nothing to stop another Wayne Cousins from visibly operating,” she said. The rhetoric of reform, apology, and change slips easily from the mouths of police leaders. For example, last Thursday, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley announced: “Urgent call to action”, previously launched Operation Onyx, the “strongest standard doubling in 50 years.”it has 689 police officers were reinvestigated. It was revealed that 161 Met staff members had been convicted. But the extent of the crisis facing the Metropolitan Police and other police forces is that decades of half-hearted reform have stripped away the outer skin but left rotting flesh, leaving police officers serving at the highest levels There is even a risk of contamination. of integrity.
How many more women and girls will have to be abused, their cries for help ignored? Metropolitan police officer David Carrick was investigated by Angiolini.) What Angiolini described as police “indifference and indifference” oversaw a “lethargic investigation” of “poor and insufficient quality” in a “deep-rooted culture”. Because of this, many more crimes will go undetected.
Since the 1950s, police have boomeranged in public life from “PC rioters” to “pigs” (“corrupt, dishonest, unethical” There are a few police officers…” Sir Paul Condon said, who met with the police chief in 1997), became institutionally racist and dangerously misogynistic following the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and Beaver Henry, Nicole Smallman and Sabina Nessa. It had a negative impact on the lives of women, including women. Just last year, Dame Louise Casey, in a review of standards at the Met, said the institution had thrown protections for women “out the window” and called the force “institutionally sexist and racist.” “Discriminatory and homophobic.”
The new broom is said to have swept away “rotten apples” among blue-clad boys (and far fewer girls) one after the other, but the toxicity is brewing again. , as the Women’s Equality Party told Priti Patel in a 2021 memo, “There’s not one bad apple. It’s the whole orchard.” It may not be the whole orchard, but what’s clear is that , that reformers need better tools to restore public trust and find a convincing answer to the question, “Who will protect the Guard?”
Mr. Angiolini made 16 recommendations. They can make a difference (but who will be in charge of monitoring progress?). Her report describes Cousins’ nearly 20-year history of sexual offenses, including stints with three police departments. She describes his “unmanaged debts, a penchant for extreme pornography, and the vulgar sexual expression of his sense of humor.” It was a treasure trove of red flags, but they were largely ignored.
Her recommendations include improving recruitment and vetting, improving police training on violence against women and girls (again) and taking sexual crimes of indecent assault more seriously. Days before Cousins murdered Sarah Everard, she revealed that she masturbated.
Women’s groups have been calling for a number of proposals over the years, calling for a better understanding of risk, especially by police. Risk is now too often interpreted as immediate physical danger, and yet women are ignored. Just last week, Marcus Osborne was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his ex-girlfriend, Katie Higton, and her boyfriend, Stephen Harnett. Ms Higton, 27, had repeatedly warned West Yorkshire Police that Osborne had threatened to cut her throat.
When the goal is to prevent injury or loss of life, a “low” risk is a red flag that action needs to be taken, but action is rarely taken. Cousins wasn’t “just” an exhibitionist, he was a killer training on a trajectory that could and should have been stopped.
In 2020, with the Bureau of Investigative Reporting. Women’s Justice CenterA small charity, which has become a major catalyst for exposing police conduct, has lodged a major complaint against police. The Independent Police Conduct Authority and others investigated. agreed to something “There are systemic deficiencies in the police response to domestic violence cases, with tort hearings consistently missing when they should and not being conducted properly.”
This is the crunch. The police themselves. As a result of Operation Onyx, 51 Metropolitan employees were fired. “Or that would have been the case if they had not resigned or retired” (full pension recipient). What are their responsibilities? Why aren’t there charges? Casey’s review One police officer was found to be responsible for 24 acts related to sexual misconduct, each of which was considered separately, but the pattern broke and he remained in office.
There is no accountability. There are few actual results. Top executives should be prosecuted and punished with loss of pensions and jail time if changes do not occur. Meanwhile, other classes should have a legal responsibility to report the kind of conduct that earned Cousins the nickname “rapist.”
In 1968, American psychologists Viv Latane and John Darley studied what would eventually be called:bystander effect”. They explained why so many people stand by and do not help individuals in crisis. Well, bystander includes: People who don’t have a voice against bullying, racism, and misogyny. Unless our police forces can root out perpetrators, bystanders, and the indifferent, they do not deserve the public’s trust or tax dollars.
Yvonne Roberts is a columnist for the Observer
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