Over 1,000 Met officers taken off front line for corruption and incompetence | UK News

More than 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers are currently suspended or on restricted duties as the force tries to get rid of corrupt and incompetent staff.

But the force has warned it could take years to get rid of officers who have breached standards or failed vetting checks.

The Met is under increased pressure to sack incompetent or even dangerous officers following the Wayne Couzens and David Carrick scandals – both of whom were placed in the same unit.

It’s since been revealed that a third of staff in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command squad, where Carrick and Couzens worked, have been cleared out in an effort to ensure the unit has an ‘absolute reset’.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said about 60 officers could face the sack every month over at least the next two years, with about 30 facing misconduct proceedings and 30 facing gross incompetence hearings.

Of the Met’s total workforce of around 34,000 officers, 201 have been suspended and about 860 are on restricted duties.

He said: ‘This is going to take one, two or more years to root out those who are corrupt.

‘If you add those two figures together, that’s over 1,000 police officers and that’s nearly the size of a small police force in other places in the country. It is a significant number.’

Following Carrick’s life sentence for dozens of sexual offences, 1,600 cases were reviewed where officers had faced allegations of domestic or sexual violence over the past 10 years but no action was taken.

Of those reviewed, there are about 450 live investigations ongoing.

The Met has also given figures about disciplinary processes, including:

• 100 officers have been sacked for gross misconduct in the past year, up by 66% on the normal rate.
• 201 officers are currently suspended, up from 69 in September last year.
• 275 are awaiting a gross misconduct hearing, a significant proportion of which involved alleged violence against women and girls, compared with 136 last year.
• The number of reports from the public and officers of alleged misconduct has doubled.

The force has also checked all officers against records on the police national computer, uncovering 11 cases which were subject to further assessment and five are now gross misconduct investigations.

14 are under further investigation for potential gross misconduct, with more due to be added.

The most serious of all the cases reviewed involved rape allegations.

On Monday Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced plans to make it easier for police chiefs to sack rogue officers, in a written ministerial statement to the Commons.

These include bringing in a presumption that those found to have committed gross misconduct will be sacked, and making sure officers who fail vetting can be dismissed.

Conviction for certain offences including sexual crimes will automatically mean gross misconduct, and responsibility for chairing misconduct hearings will return to chief officers rather than independent legally qualified chairmen.

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