IOPC to investigate Met police officers after man Tasered and two dogs shot dead

Police watchdog to launch inquiry after incident involving man with two dogs along canal in Limehouse

An investigation will be launched after a man was Tasered and two dogs were shot dead by Metropolitan police officers in front of witnesses, the police watchdog has announced.

On Friday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct said it was “appropriate” that complaints linked to the incident in Poplar, east London, on 7 May should be “independently investigated”. The IOPC said it understood the “public concern” caused by the shooting.

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Scotland Yard admits failing to hand over documents to Daniel Morgan inquiry

Met left dozens of documents in locked cabinet instead of passing to inquiry into its own corruption

Dozens of documents that Scotland Yard should have handed over to an official inquiry into its corruption were instead left in a locked cabinet located on the same floor as its commissioner, the Guardian has learned.

The revelation relates to 95 pages of documents the force now accepts it should have given to the Daniel Morgan inquiry, investigating the unsolved murder of the private detective and the role corruption played in shielding his killers.

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Met stands by officers after man Tasered and two dogs shot dead in London

Footage on social media showed officers pursuing a man holding two dogs on a short lead along a canal in Limehouse

The Metropolitan police has defended its officers after a suspect was Tasered and two dogs were shot in front of screaming witnesses.

Footage posted on social media showed officers pursuing a man holding the two dogs on a short lead along a canal in Limehouse, east London, on Sunday afternoon. The situation appeared to become heated, as the man was Tasered to the floor and the animals were shot dead.

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Anti-coronation protest leader hits out at police over arrests

Graham Smith said Met officers should hang their heads in shame after 52 detained in central London

Police who arrested anti-monarchy protesters before King Charles III’s coronation have “destroyed whatever trust might have existed between peaceful protesters and the Metropolitan police,” the chief executive of the campaign group Republic has said.

After six members of the group were arrested at about 7.30am on Saturday – before their protest had begun – and had their placards seized, Graham Smith said officers “should hang their heads in shame” and that police had shown “no judgment, no common sense and no basic decency”.

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Met police investigate more organ trafficking cases in UK

Modern slavery team reveals further allegations of people being trafficked to London for body parts

The Metropolitan police is investigating more cases of organ trafficking in the UK after new victims came forward following the first conviction for the offence under modern slavery laws.

Detectives from Scotland Yard’s modern slavery and child exploitation team have said they are investigating more allegations of people being trafficked for their body parts to London and other areas of the UK.

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Police accused over use of facial recognition at King Charles’s coronation

Met says technology will not be used to target protesters or activists, but campaigners say use is ‘extremely worrying’

The Metropolitan police has been accused of using the coronation to stage the biggest live facial recognition operation in British history.

The force said on Wednesday it intended to use the controversial technology, which scans faces and matches them against a list of people police want for alleged crimes and could identify convicted terrorists mingling in the crowds.

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Police Federation chair accepts Met is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic

Steve Hartshorn says making his personal views public is an act of ‘leadership’, after damning Casey report

The head of the Police Federation of England and Wales has said the Metropolitan police is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic, becoming the first leader of a major British policing institution to accept the findings of a devastating report last month.

In an interview with the Guardian marking the 30th anniversary of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, Steve Hartshorn said he expected a “backlash” for his comments, which he stressed were his personal view.

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Two Met police officers sacked over messages about Katie Price’s son

Officers sent offensive messages about Harvey Price, who is disabled, to colleagues in WhatsApp group

Two Metropolitan police officers have been dismissed over offensive messages that they shared in a WhatsApp group, including some that made fun of Katie Price’s disabled son.

The two serving officers and six former colleagues were found guilty of gross misconduct after sending sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic and ableist comments in a group called Secret Squirrel Shit between 2016 and 2018.

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Nus Ghani welcomes report criticising ex-chief whip but says alleged comments were ‘devastating’ – UK politics live

Latest updates: publication of report into alleged Islamophobia finds it not possible to determine what Mark Spencer said to Tory MP Ghani

A brief foray into the area between politics and football as the Athletic, a subscription-only football website, has obtained government emails that showed the possible failure of a Saudi Arabian takeover of Newcastle United was flagged as an “immediate risk” to UK-Saudi relations [paywall].

The website’s reporter Adam Crafton has 59-pages of emails between government officials that shows the Foreign Office trying to boost the image of Saudi Arabia despite concerns about human rights abuses as the Premier League considered whether to approve the deal.

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Mark Rowley aims to reform the Met on the scale of Robert Mark in the 1970s

The London police commissioner faces a battle to clean up a force where the same cultures tackled by his predecessor ‘are alive and well’

The Britain of today shares some similarities with the country of the 1970s: then the country was debating its relationship with Europe, flares were in and frequent strikes disrupted everyday life. And then, as now, standards in policing in the capital were so dire that a new broom had to be brought in to clean up the Metropolitan police.

Sir Robert Mark, the legendary reforming commissioner of the Met from 1972, said this about the force he battled to reform: “I had served in provincial forces for 30 years, and though I had known wrongdoing, I had never experienced institutionalised wrongdoing, blindness, arrogance and prejudice on anything like the scale accepted as routine in the Met.”

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Commissioner vows to clean up Met as force faces biggest crisis since 1970s

Sir Mark Rowley vows to ‘lift the stone’ – but says rooting out every unfit police officer could take years

Scotland Yard is battling its biggest corruption crisis since the 1970s, its commissioner has warned, as new evidence emerged of the widespread bungling of sexual and domestic abuse claims against officers.

The review of past allegations was triggered by the David Carrick scandal, where the force missed repeated clues that the Metropolitan police firearms officer was a threat to women, while he attacked at least 12 victims over a 20-year period, committing 85 serious crimes.

Checks on 10,000 of the Met’s 50,000 officers and staff against police databases showed 38 cases of possible misconduct and 55 cases of a potential association with a criminal, all of which will be investigated further.

Gross misconduct investigations, which can lead to sackings have risen 62% to 431, with such hearings taking less time to be held.

A total of 144 officers were suspended from duty, double that from September 2022, with 701 on restricted duties.

There has been a 70% increase in those dismissed – or leaving before they could be sacked – in the last six months.

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Louise Casey: Met police chief accepting term ‘institutional’ would mean so much

Mark Rowley says he accepts the report but will not use the term because it has become politicised

Louise Casey has told the Metropolitan police commissioner it would “mean so much” if he accepted the term “institutional” regarding the failings in the force, as the war of words over the use of the word showed no signs of slowing down.

It came as the mother of two sisters whose dead bodies were photographed and shared on a WhatsApp group by two officers said she was “gobsmacked” he refused to use the term.

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Khan criticises Rowley’s refusal to describe Met as institutionally biased

Metropolitan police commissioner says ‘institutional’ label is confusing and political as fallout from Casey report continues

Sadiq Khan has publicly clashed with the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, saying he disagrees with Sir Mark Rowley’s refusal to describe his force as institutionally misogynistic, racist and homophobic.

The mayor of London, one of two people who appointed Rowley, spoke as the fallout from Louise Casey’s bombshell report into Scotland Yard continued.

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Boris Johnson ‘very much looking forward’ to appearing before MPs investigating whether he misled parliament over Partygate – as it happened

Former prime minister says he believes evidence shows he did not recklessly mislead parliament over Partygate

Boris Johnson claims there is no document showing that he was given “any warning or advice” than any No 10 event may have broken Covid rules. He says:

It is clear from that investigation that there is no evidence at all that supports an allegation that I intentionally or recklessly misled the house. The only exception is the assertions of the discredited Dominic Cummings, which are not supported by any documentation.

There is not a single document that indicates that I received any warning or advice that any event broke or may have broken the rules or guidance. In fact, the evidence before the committee demonstrates that those working at No 10 at the time shared my honest belief that the rules and guidance were being followed.

I accept that the House of Commons was misled by my statements that the rules and guidance had been followed completely at No 10. But when the statements were made, they were made in good faith and on the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time.

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Tuesday briefing: Breaking down the damning new 300-page report into the Met Police’s failures

In today’s newsletter: The Casey report gives an in-depth look at the issues at the core of the capital’s police force

Good morning.

The crisis faced by the Metropolitan police has only become more acute after publication of a damning report by Lady Louise Casey, released today, that finds the force has institutional problems with racism, misogyny and homophobia. The review was commissioned after the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 by serving firearms officer Wayne Couzens. The 300-page report leaves no stone unturned, addressing the culture of bullying and harassment, and senior leadership’s inability to adequately address the mounting number of scandals. It has also said that the Met should accept the finding of an inquiry from 2021 that deemed the force “institutionally corrupt”.

Climate crisis | The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has delivered its “final warning” on the climate emergency. The report took eight years, hundreds of scientists, runs thousands of pages long and has one clear message: act now or face irrevocable damage to the planet. There is still hope though, as the authors of the report stress that it is still possible to avoid the worst ravages of climate breakdown.

Brexit | According to party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP will be voting against the government in this week’s first parliamentary vote on the new Windsor framework for Northern Ireland. Donaldson said: “There remain key areas of concern which require further clarification, reworking and change as well as seeing further legal text.”

Strikes | Members of the RMT have voted to accept a 9% pay increase over two years, in a referendum that closed yesterday. The turnout of the vote was nearly 90%, with 74% voting for the offer, thereby ending their dispute with Network Rail.

Labour | Keir Starmer has been criticised for pledging to put in place a “zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism and racism” without having transparent systems in place to tackle them. Martin Forde KC, the senior lawyer who carried out an inquiry into the party’s culture, said “you can’t implement zero tolerance unless you’re policing things fairly rigorously”.

Banking | As the banking crisis continued to spread, shares in the regional First Republic bank based in San Francisco crashed more than 46% yesterday after reports that it may need to raise even more funds despite a $30bn bailout last week.

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Met has ‘nowhere to hide’ after damning Casey report, say campaigners

Sadiq Khan promises to hold police force to account after report highlights institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia

Women’s rights campaigners have warned the damning Casey report into culture at the Met has left the force with “nowhere to hide”.

Dame Louise Casey’s 300-page report found institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia persists within Britain’s biggest police force.

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Met police on ‘last chance’ as Casey report to condemn failure to change

Exclusive: findings of official review due out on Tuesday described as ‘horrible’ and ‘atrocious’ for force

The Metropolitan police service is riddled with deep-seated racism, sexism and homophobia and has failed to change despite numerous official reviews urging it to do so, an official report will say.

The report from Louise Casey, which is due to be published on Tuesday, will excoriate Britain’s biggest police force, the Guardian has been told. Senior government and policing figures are aware of its contents, with one describing it as “horrible” and another as “atrocious”. One source with knowledge of the findings said the report would make clear that the Met was in the “last-chance saloon”.

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David Carrick’s mother says ex-Met officer may have exaggerated childhood trauma

Exclusive: Estranged parent, 67, suggests account of neglect, drinking and abuse by stepfather probably aimed at reducing rape sentence

The mother of the rapist Metropolitan police officer David Carrick has said it is possible he overplayed his childhood trauma to reduce his sentence.

Carrick, 48, pleaded guilty to 85 serious offences including 48 rapes against 12 women. He was given 36 life sentences at Southwark crown court on Tuesday and will spend at least the next 30 years in prison for his 17-year crime spree.

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David Carrick jailed for life over series of rapes while Met police officer

Carrick, 48, admitted 85 serious offences during 17-year campaign of terror and attacks against women

David Carrick, who believed his position as a Metropolitan police officer made him “untouchable” as he waged a 17-year campaign of terror and attacks against women, has been jailed for life.

The 48-year-old must serve a minimum term of 32 years minus the time he has spent in custody before he can even be considered for release.

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Al Sharpton warns UK could suffer US-style police brutality without deep reform

Civil rights veteran who gave eulogy at Tyre Nichols’ funeral says racism in UK policing could produce similar tragedies

The Rev Al Sharpton has warned that racially charged incidents such as the brutal death of Tyre Nichols in the US will also occur in the UK without far-reaching police reforms.

On the eve of a two-day visit to the UK, the US civil rights veteran said that “systemic racism” and a “culture of policing that produces brutality” must be addressed.

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