Met says surge in misconduct probes since Baroness Casey review is biggest cleanup of force since Operation Countryman in 1970s

MORE police officers than ever were investigated for alleged misconduct at Britain's biggest force last year in the wake of a series of damning scandals.

Misconduct probes carried in the Met Police grew by 80 per cent last year to 1,051 from 584 investigations in 2022.

The force hailed it as the "strongest crack down on standards" since the 1970s when Operation Countryman tackled major corruption including Flying Squad officers allegedly taking bribes to tip off gangsters about raids.

Sir Robert Mark (below) was Met Commissioner from 1972 to 1977 and said he wanted a CID that “catches more criminals than it employs”.

He set up Britain’s first police anti-corruption unit, A10 and after this, from 1972 to 1977, nearly 500 police officers were either prosecuted, dismissed or forced to resign.

The number of investigations that led to full misconduct hearings grew by 29 per cent in 2023 to 134 cases from 104 held in 2022.

A huge amount concerned sexual misdemeanours, with drug and alcohol abuse and racist or discriminatory behaviour regular themes.

The Met did not divulge how many officers were found guilty of misconduct.

Analysis of 348 cases heard from January 2019 to August 2022 found that 246 of those (70 per cent) were found guilty and sacked.

As of February, there were 377 officers awaiting gross misconduct hearings, with 42 per cent of them (158) relating to violence against women and girls or sexual offences, while 13 per cent (49) concern discrimination.

A Met Police spokeswoman said: “More proactive investigations by our professional standards teams, and information from Met people and the public, mean we continue to make significant progress to relentlessly identify and root out police officers and staff who commit offences.

"Amid the strongest doubling down on standards in the Met for 50 years, we have been open in that the public can expect to see and hear about more cases while we actively root out those with no business in the Met."

A series of reviews of toxic cultures were ordered by the Home Office in response to the September 2021 conviction of Wayne Couzens who shockingly kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard while a serving officer in March that year.

These were fuelled by the January 2023 life conviction of serial rapist David Carrick, who had served alongside Couzens (above) in the force's armed Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command.

One damning report was published by Baroness Louise Casey in March 2023 after concluding the force was "institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic" and attracted those wanting to abuse police powers.

The figures were provided by the Met after Essex News and Investigations noted an apparent huge rise in misconduct hearings, including of a sexual nature, after monitoring cases in the year since the Casey Review.

However, some officers found guilty of gross misconduct in the past few months have clung on to their jobs.

These include:

A police sergeant found to have dipped his finger down the back of a female junior colleague's shorts and touched her between the top of her buttocks;

An officer who headbutted his son and assaulted his mother in a drunken domestic rampage, after he vowed to seek treatment for his drinking;

An officer who used a discriminatory term for members of the traveller community and another officer who used racist language.

In other cases the force appears to have gone too far by holding misconduct hearings against the evidence.

There were two separate cases where a female officer accused a male colleague of a sex assault and a male officer accused a female of the same after drinking on nights out.

Subsequent misconduct panels criticised the force for bringing the cases as CCTV available to investigators showed both accusers had consented.

Former Met Police Detective Sergeant Steve Morris left the force with a pay-out in 2000 due to mistreatment after he blew the whistle on racism against colleagues and corruption.

He said: "It’s a combination of what was swept under the carpet before the ‘major reformation’ and the fact they are being more active on allegations. However they are often going for the low hanging fruit. Ask yourself how many cases of serious corruption and miscarriages of justice have come up in the last year."

Alison Lowe, (above) the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) Deputy Lead on Transparency and Accountability, said: "Following cases of appalling behaviour within policing that have come to light in the last few years, there has been a significantly increased focus on rooting out those guilty of misconduct of any kind and on strengthening police standards and culture.

“Chief Constables have committed to ridding their forces of those who are not fit to serve, and police and crime commissioners will continue, on behalf of the public, to hold them to account on that pledge."