EXCLUSIVE: Met Police officers under criminal investigation ousted from force before being charged

MET police officers are being ousted from the force before they have been charged with a criminal offence under Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley's bid to speed up removals.

Historically, if an officer was under both a misconduct and criminal investigation, the latter would be completed first.

An officer could then face misconduct proceedings if they were found guilty or even innocent, due to the lower burden of proof.

However, in a number of cases officers are now facing misconduct hearings while under criminal investigation and before being charged.

In one case an officer was found to have photographs of his genitals exposed in various police stations on his phone which was seized as part of a criminal investigation that remained ongoing when the misconduct hearing took place.

Another officer faced a misconduct hearing for having indecent images of children as young as six on his phone while a file was still with the CPS and the same happened with an officer alleged to have assaulted a police officer from another force.

A Met Police spokesman said: "The Commissioner has spoken about wanting to speed up the time it takes to remove officers from the organisation if they have committed gross misconduct. This is part of that process."

A spokesman for police union, the Police Federation, said: "We would not welcome an increase (in misconduct cases) if officers are being unnecessarily investigated following the Casey report. It should always be on a case by case severity assessment."