London's Met Police state uncovered in disturbing cases

As anonymous officers share cases of evidence being destroyed due to improper equipment, homophobic comments and 'sex-obsessed' employees. 

It comes as staff spoke to PA news agency, including officer G who shared their experience whilst working on sexual offences unit Sapphire. 

Officer G said multiple officers would be needed to close freezers holding forensic samples because they were so full.

Sharing: "the unit’s freezers, which held and preserved evidence obtained from victims and survivors of sexual violence including swabs, blood, urine and underwear, would be so full it would take three officers to close them: one person to push the door closed, one person to hold it shut, and one to secure the lock."

Adding: “In the heatwave in 2022, G said that one freezer broke down and all of the evidence had to be destroyed because it could no longer be used.

“G said a general email had been sent round to this effect and that it meant that all those cases of alleged rape would be dropped.

The officer also shared that one male colleague failed to understand why a case was a violent rape.

“He actually said ‘if I put my d*** in your arse, you said ‘ow’, you were screaming and I stopped because you were screaming, is that still a rape?’ I was just asking which team needed to deal with it.”

G also claimed how officers were told to delete WhatsApp messages during meetings about the internal campaign Not In My Met, designed to encourage officers and staff to speak out about discrimination.

Disturbing cases uncover alarming state of the Metropolitan Police

One black female officer, under H, said male colleagues were “sex obsessed” and would openly rate and grade female colleagues and members of the public on their appearance.

“H says during this time she was often described by male officers as ‘job fit’ – a term she understood to mean women at work who they thought were ‘attractive for a police officer’.

“H says young, female officers were ‘traded like cattle’ and moved on to different units depending on which male officers found them attractive.”

H also shared that after moving to a new unit, "women were pressured to compete in food-eating challenges to initiate them into the team, and described women being forced to eat whole cheesecakes until they would vomit."

Adding: “On one occasion she was told of a male officer being sexually assaulted in the showers as part of their own initiation, something she says officers would openly talk and joke about on the unit."

Another officer, A, shared that they were beaten and raped multiple times by fellow Met officer X, and was so distraught by the force’s handling of the case she tried to take her own life.

In a year, the case was passed between six different investigators each time A was asked to give her account on what had happened. 

As A shared: "I was getting so angry and so frustrated with them and I decided I couldn’t do it any more, I’m done, I need to get on with my life, I was in an absolute state, I had tried to kill myself that year because of the police investigation, it was draining the life out of me.”

After two years of investigation, no action was taken.

Openly gay officer E has been targeted with false rumours that he takes recreational drugs and has been involved in sexual relationships with senior officers, and has been treated favourably as a result.

E has also been targeted with homophobic abuse from anonymous accounts on social media.

“This will sound quite laughable. I am scared of the police. I don’t trust my own organisation. I will vary the route I walk to avoid walking past police officers when I am not at work.”