Category Archives: Metropolitan police

Half of those charged with knife murders had committed similar offences

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Call for action after police figures show 46% of people charged were reoffenders

Almost half of people charged with knife killings in London over the past three years had previously committed an offence involving a blade, Metropolitan police figures suggest.

The Met charged 379 people with knife crime homicides between the start of November 2016 and the end of October last year. Of those charged, 173, or 46%, had previously committed a knife offence, according to the Met data.

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UK police out-of-court settlements total £30m in four years

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Figure is ‘tip of iceberg’ in terms of people on receiving end of unlawful police behaviour

Dozens of police forces have made out-of-court settlements totalling more than £30m in the past four years, according to recent figures, which were described as “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of people on the receiving end of unlawful police behaviour.

Payments range from small sums for loss of property, or the £100 paid by Sussex police for “embarrassment and humiliation”, through to hundreds of thousands of pounds paid for wrongful arrest, records revealed under the Freedom of Information Act show.

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Met officer in child abuse video case faces fast-track dismissal

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Supt Robyn Williams may be sacked before appeal against conviction can be heard

A decorated senior Metropolitan police officer controversially convicted of possessing a child abuse video is facing a fast-track dismissal from the force, the Guardian has learned.

Supt Robyn Williams could end up being sacked within months for gross misconduct, before her appeal against her conviction can be heard.

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Met faces new questions over ‘trafficked’ teen in Epstein case

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Victims’ tsar to query Force’s decision not to act over Prince Andrew claims

The Victims’ Commissioner is demanding that the Metropolitan Police explain its decision not to pursue a full investigation into claims a teenager was trafficked to the UK to have sex with Prince Andrew.

The Observer understands that Dame Vera Baird QC, a former solicitor general and chair of the Board of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, has taken a close interest in the allegations, first examined by Scotland Yard in 2015.

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Field Marshal Lord Bramall obituary

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Former chief of the defence staff who served at D-day and was later embroiled in the Metropolitan Police’s Operation Midland

Field Marshal Lord Bramall, who has died aged 95, was chief of the defence staff from 1982 until 1985, the pinnacle of a long military career that began just in time to land him on the beaches of Normandy as a freshly minted second lieutenant in the D-day invasion of June 1944.

But in March 2015 he was drawn into the saga of claims of historical paedophilia and child abuse in high places that began with the unmasking of Jimmy Savile in 2012. Bramall’s cottage in a village near Farnham, Surrey, was raided by police as part of a co-ordinated initiative that also included the homes of Lord (Leon) Brittan, the former home secretary, who died in January 2015. All this was part of Operation Midland, set up by the Metropolitan police in response to allegations against a number of notable public figures.

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Extinction Rebellion protesters may sue Met as ban ruled unlawful

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Section 14 order issued to halt protest across London was not legitimate, high court rules

Hundreds of Extinction Rebellion protesters may sue the Metropolitan police for unlawful arrest after the high court quashed an order banning the group’s protests in London last month.

In a judgment handed down on Wednesday morning, Mr Justice Dingemans and Mr Justice Chamberlain said the section 14 order imposed during XR’s “autumn uprising” in October was unlawful.

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One dead and 15 injured after two buses and a car collide in Orpington

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Ten ambulance crews sent to incident in south-east London, with local roads closed by police

One person has died and 15 more have been injured after two buses and a car collided in south-east London, the emergency services have said.

The Metropolitan police were called to the scene in Orpington, in the borough of Bromley, shortly after 10pm on Thursday night. They said one person, whom they did not name, was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Major disruption at Euston station after rush-hour services cancelled

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Rail services from the London hub suspended while police dealt with trespassing incident

Commuters travelling through London Euston faced major disruption after services were delayed or cancelled during rush hour.

All rail services from the central London station were suspended and the West Coast main line was closed while police dealt with a trespassing incident on Friday evening.

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Police ban Extinction Rebellion protests from whole of London

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City-wide Met police operation begins to clear Trafalgar Square and other protest sites

Police have banned Extinction Rebellion protests from continuing anywhere in London, as they moved in almost without warning to clear protesters who remained at the movement’s camp in Trafalgar Square.

The Metropolitan police issued a revised section 14 order on Monday night that said “any assembly linked to the Extinction Rebellion ‘Autumn Uprising’ ... must now cease their protests within London (MPS and City of London Police Areas)” by 9pm.

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Met police agreed to say they believed VIP abuse claims, report finds

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Publication also reveals extent of deputy Labour leader’s role in failed Operation Midland

Scotland Yard officers agreed to publicly say they believed the key witness in a multi-million pound investigation into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile ring, according to a damning report which lays bare a series of police failings.

The revelation was omitted three years ago when the Metropolitan police released a heavily redacted version of the high court judge’s report on its handling of the £2.5m Operation Midland, which ended without a single arrest.

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Met to take no further action over Leave.EU spending breaches

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Police say Brexit campaign broke law but claim insufficient evidence to continue

The Metropolitan police have announced they will take no further action against the Leave.EU campaign for spending offences in the Brexit referendum, despite accepting that it broke the law.

In a statement released on Friday, the Met concluded there was insufficient evidence to justify further investigation of the group, which was set up by the insurance businessman Arron Banks.

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Senior officer suggests austerity fuelled surge in violent crime

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Superintendent Darius Hemmatpour said that taking 20,000 police of the streets created a void

Funding cuts to police and public services that previously helped stop people, especially the young, from offending has helped fuel the surge in violent crime, a police chief has said.

Supt Darius Hemmatpour of Scotland Yard’s violent crime task force, said stabbings and other life-threatening attacks in London spiked after 2017, and suggested that austerity was a factor.

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Donald Trump’s UK state visit cost Met police £3.5m

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Over 6,300 officers deployed for June trip, at time of mounting pressure on police resources

Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK cost the Metropolitan police nearly £3.5m, figures have revealed, at a time of rising pressure on police resources.

Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrated against the US president in the capital before he attended a D-day commemoration service in Portsmouth.

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Donald Trump in new attack on Sadiq Khan with Katie Hopkins retweet

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US president refers to message about Met police twitter account, calling London mayor ‘incompetent’

Donald Trump has retweeted the British far-right commentator Katie Hopkins and launched another attack on Sadiq Khan.

Referring to a message from Hopkins that the Met’s Twitter account had been targeted by hackers on Friday night, in which she said officers had “lost control of London streets” and “lost control of their Twitter account too”, Trump tweeted: “With the incompetent mayor of London, you will never have safe streets!”

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Scotland Yard’s Twitter account breached in series of bizarre posts

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‘Unauthorised access’ led to series of messages being posted and emailed to subscribers

Scotland Yard’s principal Twitter account, which is followed by more than 1.2 million people and is used to provide important alerts in times of crisis, tweeted a series of bizarre messages on Friday night after becoming “subject to unauthorised access”.

Many of the dozen errant tweets, some of which referred to the British rapper Digga D, were also repeated in press releases emailed out to journalists from the force’s official email address. Officers said they were “assessing to establish what criminal offences have been committed” over the security breach.

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Suspected leaker of Kim Darroch cables identified – report

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GCHQ called in to help counter-terrorism police examine email and phone records

The suspect behind the leak of confidential memos from Britain’s Washington ambassador has been identified, the Sunday Times newspaper has reported.

British officials have launched an inquiry to find the person responsible for the leak of emails published by the Mail on Sunday. Counter-terrorism police have launched a criminal investigation.

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Kim Darroch: Met rows back on warning journalists could face prosecution

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Force had said that publishing leaked diplomatic cables may breach Official Secrets Act

The Metropolitan police has rowed back from its warning that journalists could face prosecution if they publish any further leaked diplomatic cables such as those that ran in the Mail on Sunday last weekend, precipitating the resignation of the British ambassador to the US, Kim Darroch.

In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the Met assistant commissioner Neil Basu said the force “respects the rights of the media and has no intention of seeking to prevent editors from publishing stories in the public interest in a liberal democracy. The media hold an important role in scrutinising the actions of the state.”

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London Bridge attack: Victims’ families criticise authorities for clearing MI5 and police

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Relatives of eight people killed in terrorist attack said security services had fallen short

The families of the London Bridge victims criticised the authorities on Friday after a coroner cleared MI5 and police of failing to prevent the terror attack despite having the ringleader under investigation.

After more than seven weeks of harrowing evidence, the inquests into the deaths of the eight victims of the June 2017 attack came to an end with the conclusion that they had been unlawfully killed.

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Met police chief hails fall in violent crime in London

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Cressida Dick says more officers and rise in stop and search had reduced stabbings and murders

The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, has hailed big falls in violent crime in London in the past year, with fights over drugs, predominantly cocaine, playing a key part in the rise in the number of stabbings and homicides in the capital.

Related: Criminals going unpunished because of cuts, says police chief

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