policing
The New McCarthyism Intensifies
Columbia President Shafik's capitulation to, and then collaboration with, the House Republican Show Hearings marked a turning point in the development of the New McCarthyism in the United States. Her decision to suspend encamped students and declare them in "trespass" and to then call in the NYPD in violation of, at least the spirit of Columbia's governing documents has unleashed a remarkable number of copycat Presidents. Presidents at Emory, University of Florida, Indiana University, University of Texas, Humboldt Polytechnic, and Yale and Connecticut to name only a few, have suspended student protesters, called in police (in some cases including snipers), and struck poses of campus emergency--all in response to what have been overwhelmingly peaceful protests in support of Palestinian rights.
Of course, as President Shafik quickly learned, if she had hoped to appease the right-wing critics of the protests and of higher education she was sorely mistaken. Her naming names and revealing confidential information about investigations at the hearing only provided new openings for the Right to intensify pressure as she effectively conceded their claims that her campus was in crisis. Who could be surprised when House Speaker Mike Johnson, himself under pressure from his own right wing, decided to make Columbia a photo op in order to call for Shafik's resignation, while Senators Hawley and Cotton called for the National Guard to be mobilized to break up the encampments.
The evident failure of President Shafik's strategy to appease the House Republicans and the ongoing imitation of her actions make manifest the politically precarious state of higher education today. In thinking about this situation I'd suggest that three points are crucial:
1. Shafik's strategy, and those of her epigones, was doomed from the start because the right wing focus on anti-Semitism was never a good faith effort. That there have been anti-Semitic statements and actions seems clear, but these have been isolated and on the margins. That Republicans who didn't condemn Charlottesville and who promote the Great Replacement Theory have suddenly become concerned about the safety of Jewish students beggars belief. Instead, this specific effort to smear campuses is a continuation of the Right's prior campaigns to limit the teaching of subjects critical of current and historical structures of class, gender and race. There is little movement needed for Florida to go from limiting discussion of sexuality and race while attacking academic freedom and faculty authority, to suspending anti-Zionist student organizations, to reinstating requirements to teach anti-communism as if that remains a pressing issue. It's true that there is nothing new with attempting to insist that anti-Zionism is by definition anti-Semitism. But that conflation has always been about limiting knowledge and political debate at least as much as it has been about protecting Jews.
2. The fact that Shafik's turn to police has been imitated so widely should give us pause about treating her as a special case. It is true that she is a classic example of a university president whose experience is not as an academic. But that excuse cannot be made for so many other presidents. Instead, the reliance on force marks both the structural separation of senior management from the everyday life of campuses--especially their everyday intellectual and academic life--as well as the overweening power of donors and, in the case of public universities, governors and state legislators. Governing Boards have become much more active and much more closely tied to wealthy and intrusive donors given the relative decline in public funding support for higher education. These are all outcomes of the long-term spread of managerialism in higher education. But this need not be written in stone. As the cases of Brown, Northwestern, and Wesleyan demonstrate, it is possible for Presidents to choose an alternative path. But they have to recognize the academic nature of their institutions to do so.
3. Indeed, the fact that there have been alternative approaches to the encampments suggests what college and university leaders need to do if they want to preserve the autonomy and nature of their institutions. One of the failures of President Shafik, as well as her predecessors from Harvard and Penn, was her failure to use her time to challenge the premise of the hearings. I recognize that to do so would be extremely difficult. The whole thing was a show trial. But President Shafik could have used her time to defend her institution and the nature of higher education, to explain the nature of academic inquiry, to insist on the importance of the intellectual autonomy of universities from political interference. She did none of those things. Instead, she violated some of the most important traditions of academic freedom we have.
Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner Faces Calls to Quit Over Police Uniform Stunt and Social Media Posts
A prominent Police and Crime Commissioner faces a raft of complaints following a string of controversial social media posts and a potential breach of his own office’s rules against politicising the force.
A letter to CEO Chief Constable Andy Marsh of the College of Policing, by Andrew Martin of the local Luton Neighbourhood Watch and seen by Byline Times, details serious concerns regarding the conduct of PCC Festus Akinbusoye.
Last week it emerged that Mr Akinbusoye had been found by the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel (PCP), which monitors his conduct, to have failed to uphold the Nolan Principles, which are core ethical standards for public officials.
Mr Martin also implies he breached the Police Code of Ethics, over social media posts that included referring to a Bible verse (Psalm 59), apparently castigating those questioning his behaviour as “enemies”, and implying that Luton Neighbourhood Watch had misused public funds.
The letter to the College of Policing comes after the Conservative PCC recently halted funding to Luton Neighbourhood Watch (LNW), which Martin alleges was politically motivated as the group had been critical of him. Mr Akinbusoye denies the claims.
It also comes amid separate complaints over a likely breach of his own Bedfordshire police commissioner's office protocols, after his team published leaflets showing him in police uniform.
The outspoken crime commissioner is also a director of the College of Policing. Mr Martin argues this role is now untenable, despite the Conservative PCC being up for re-election this week.
The letter strongly urges Mr Akinbusoye to resign or to be removed from his directorship at the College of Policing, arguing: “The PCP Complaint Sub-Committee especially mentioned the failure of Mr Akinbusoye to uphold the principles of Leadership and Openness, it follows that Mr Akinbusoye is not qualified to offer views on improving leadership, improving standards in British Policing, developing leadership and driving consistency across UK police forces.”
PCC in Police Outfit
Byline Times recently revealed the Conservative Crime Commissioner had appeared in leaflets wearing a police uniform, apparently against his own OPCC protocol. It’s understood that the image was taken during a stint as a special constable before becoming PCC. However, police imagery is not meant to be used in election material due to the risk of making it look like a political endorsement.
The Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner has now responded to one of the complaints against this, saying that Mr Akinbusoye’s agent had accepted that the candidate should not have appeared in a police uniform in leaflets.
The OPCC representative said they had received several complaints about the campaign material, noting: “The OPCC discussed this matter with the candidate's agent…who accepts that the local protocol sets out that images of Bedfordshire Police officers should not be used in election material. The image is of the Conservative candidate, Festus Akinbusoye, who served as a Special Constable in Bedfordshire Police from 14 August 2020 to 15 October 2020.
“[The agent] accepts that the lack of caption explaining that the image is of Mr Akinbusoye when he was briefly a Special Constable was an oversight and could have been included on the election material.”
The agent reportedly pledged that the image subject to the complaints “would not be used in any new material that the campaign team did not already have printed”.
Warning Shot
The OPCC has also sent a message to candidates following the complaints, which reads as a sanction: “The purpose of issuing a protocol to cover the election campaign period is to ensure, as far as possible, a fair and level playing field for all candidates and for there to be no opportunity for any criticism of any candidate…
“Of particular note is the APCC guidance that states: ‘Police and Crime Commissioners will wish to be particularly careful around publicity photos which might risk involving the force in campaign and political material, whether seeking re-election themselves or supporting other PCC candidates.”
The commissioner’s office notes that “no objections were raised by any campaign team about the protocol” when they attended a briefing on the guidance.
“The OPCC and the [election returning officer] have received complaints about the use of police imagery in some of the election material for one of the candidates…The OPCC is considering whether the use of police imagery is in line with the local protocol and awaits a response from the NPCC in relation to its guidance.” No electoral law has been broken, but the guidance protocol appears to have breached.
Decision Will Come After Election
Professor Colin Talbott, professor of Governance at the University of Manchester and a Bedford resident, was one of those who complained to the OPCC. He told Byline Times: “They've kicked it into the long grass. The OPCC has passed it up to the National Police Chiefs' Council, and asked them to adjudicate on whether or not this is incorrect use of police immediately, and they've had no response.
“It is absolutely clear that it's a breach of the protocol. There's no question about it. He doesn't say: ‘well, here's an exemption if you happen to have been a police officer… He's put out another leaflet with this police imagery, and he's defended it on social media. He said there's nothing wrong with it.”
PCCs usually have some discretionary budget to fund non-police projects like Victim Support, Neighbourhood Watch schemes and so on. “He got into a dispute with his Luton Neighbourhood Watch, which is the largest one in the county, and he suspended their funding," Prof Talbott claimed.
Update 1st May 2024: A spokesperson for the Bedfordshire OPCC strongly refuted the claims, saying: "The complaint around the use of the imagery has been resolved...The use was found to have been in breach and advice given, this hasn’t been passed to NPCC to make a decision.
"Further, no funds have been suspended or withdrawn from Luton NHW. Following the overhaul of the way in which the OPCC provides funds to organisations in 2022, funding has continued to be allocated to the County’s Watch Schemes, which includes the three neighbourhood watch organisations that operate in the county, and also activity such as dog watch, horse watch and community speed watch.
"It is not true that any neighbourhood watch scheme has had their funding withdrawn. What is true, is that the process that we require the neighbourhood watch schemes to use to access the funding allocated to them has changed."
“I Totally Reject and Refute the Findings”
Festus Akinbusoye released a statement on social media last week, responding to the leaked findings of the police scrutiny sub-panel and suggesting it was politically motivated: “The complaints process is not yet completed, and it is quite shocking that the very well-known serial complainant has released the findings of the panel sub-committee before I have had the opportunity to respond to them, so I am limited as to what I can say for legal reasons.
“I can however say, I totally reject and refute the findings of the Panel and will be responding fully as part of the formal process in due course. It will be very concerning to any objective observer looking at this process, that an independent Police and Crime Panel decided to hold a sub-committee complaint hearing a day before the election regulated/restricted period commenced, despite receiving the complaint from the serial complainant nearly six weeks before the date, and then further enabled the outcome to be released by the serial complainant.
“The timing of the Panel's intervention is therefore deeply regrettable and raises several questions, among which there's absolutely no right of appeal against its decision by me. The Panel has thus taken on a position which even our Courts do not take.”
He added: “I remain fully focused on my positive campaign to be re-elected as Bedfordshire's Police and Crime Commissioner on Thursday 2nd May while continuing to fulfil all my duties on behalf of residents.”
A spokesperson for Bedfordshire’s Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) also noted that the findings of the sub-panel against Mr Akinbusoye were meant to remain confidential ahead of the process being finalised and a decision being taken on whether to publish it.
The OPCC spokesperson added: “The complaint process has not yet concluded so it would be inappropriate to make any comment until it has been finalised.”
Spotted something strange ahead of the local elections? If you have a political story or tip-off, email josiah@bylinetimes.com or the VoteWatch contact above.
The Law That Could Prevent the Next Hillsborough
As the details of the Post Office Horizon scandal hit the headlines, Ian Byrne had a familiar feeling wash over him.
As a survivor of the Hillsborough disaster and a lifelong campaigner for justice for the 97 Liverpool fans who lost their lives that day, the experience of repeated cover-ups and victims struggling to be heard was something the MP for Liverpool West Derby knew all too well.
It has been one of a litany of historic and ongoing scandals that have come all too frequently in modern Britain – from the Infected Blood Scandal and WASPI Women to the lack of NHS oversight that allowed serial killer Lucy Letby to kill seven newborns in the Countess of Chester hospital.
Now – exactly 35 years to the day after Hillsborough – survivors like him and the families of those lost that day have struggled to get full justice or accountability from the authorities who lied and covered up what happened that day.
But now their hopes for justice rest on a new idea – something they say could stop the next Hillsborough disaster or Post Office scandal from happening.
The idea behind the so-called ‘Hillsborough Law’ is relatively simple. It would introduce a legal responsibility to tell the truth in any form of formal inquiry or proceeding (otherwise known as a ‘duty of candour’) with criminal punishments if they breach that law.
“It’s not okay that someone whose wage is paid by us the taxpayer to lie at an inquiry to us the taxpayer,” explains Elkan Abrahamson, director of the Hillsborough Law Now campaign.
“Police officers at Hillsborough were charged with fabricating or altering evidence in the initial inquiry into Hillsborough.
“They were charged but their barrister made a submission that as it wasn’t a statuary inquiry or a court hearing, there was no effect to lying to that inquiry. And the judges accepted that."
Another major part of the proposed Hillsborough Law would be a protection offering victims parity of legal funding in inquests.
"The Hillsborough families had to crowdfund their solicitor for the first inquest when they were facing the full power of the state, lined up against the KCs, the barristers, the FA, the police,” explains Byrne.
"Imagine the difference at the beginning of Hillsborough if we had had the same resources as the state had.
“I liken it to entering the boxing ring against a 6ft 9 brute like Tyson Fury with a blindfold on and your hands tied behind your back. And I think that that encapsulates Hillsborough to me, that's what was getting faced. And that's why it took a remarkable story to end up where we ended up.”
Elkan Abrahamson from the Hillsborough Justice campaign gives evidence to the Commons Home affairs Committee at Portcullis House in London in 2014. Photo: PA Images/Alamy
The impact campaigners hope the law will have is varied. On the surface, obviously, it would make it much harder for state organisations – from the police to the NHS or the Post Office – to lie to official inquests.
In doing so it could prevent the next major scandal – or at least catch it far earlier in the process.
And for victims and their families forced to sit through such cover-ups it would offer real accountability to those who hid the truth.
But the benefits, Byrne says, go much further... These scandals don’t just have a huge personal cost, but a financial one – from compensation to the long string of court cases and inquests.
Over £153m has already been paid out in compensation to victims of the Post Office Horizon Scandal, for example.
“Imagine how much taxpayer money would have been saved on endless inquests and inquiries and compensation if we had something at the outset when the truth had to be told,” says Byrne.
But thus far the Government have refused the campaigners' demands.
They have claimed that a Hillsborough Law isn’t needed because the Government had signed a “Hillsborough charter”, that states a commitment by departments to openness and transparency after public tragedies.
But for Byrne and Abrahamson, the Government’s proposals lack proper repercussions for those caught out trying to orchestrate a cover-up.
Abrahamson cites the fact that a ‘duty of candour’ newly put in place for police officers, for example, only risks them facing professional punishment if they lie, not criminal.
And while Byrne says Justice Secretary Alex Chalk has been receptive to the campaign’s demands, he argues the Government focus on loose culture change risks being too “soft touch”.
“What better way to change the culture than to know if you’re heading into cover-up territory then you're gonna be prosecuted and face the ultimate penalties,” Byrne explains.
Labour leader Keir Starmer has repeatedly pledged to pass a Hillsborough Law if Labour wins the next election however, and now the campaigners’ main priority is ensuring Labour don’t back away from that promise and pass the law in the first 100 days of any future government.
“I keep coming back to fairness, equality, and the ability to get justice regardless of what position you’re in in society,” says Byrne. “For me, it encapsulates the unfairness of this country, and the Hillsborough Law would rebalance the scales of justice so all could get justice and that’s so important to me having lived through what I did at Hillsborough.
“Whoever you are, whatever your circumstances, you should be able to get justice.”
Caroline Flack’s Lawyer Suggests Decision to Charge her May Have Been ‘Driven by Desire’ to Appease Media as Met Police Probe Case
Caroline Flack's lawyer suggested this week that a decision by the Metropolitan Police to charge the late TV presenter may have been "driven by a desire" to appease the media, as he spoke out after the force confirmed that it will partly reinvestigate its decision to prosecute as "new evidence may be available".
The development comes after a Byline Times special investigation into the case, 'Closure For Caroline Flack: Her Family's Four-Year Search for the Truth', uncovered fresh information. It is the cover story for the April edition, out now.
The Crown Prosecution Service recommended that the former Love Island host be cautioned after an incident with her then boyfriend, Lewis Burton, in December 2019. This was overturned after an appeal from the Met, which resulted in the 40-year-old charged with assault by beating.
Caroline was found dead at her home in Stoke Newington, north London, in February 2020 with a coroner later ruling that she killed herself after learning of the impending prosecution and fearing the publicity a trial would attract.
Her mother, Christine Flack, has been critical of the police's handling of her daughter's case from the outset, and is fighting to uncover the truth about how decisions around charging her unfolded.
She told Byline Times: “It is a big gap in our understanding of one of the most important moments in the whole thing. It has left us as a family in a terrible, stressful position. It is time he cleared it up, so we can get some justice for Carrie.”
The cover of the April edition of the Byline Times featuring the special investigation into Caroline Flack's case
Christine has made a fresh complaint to the Met because her family has been left with "important unanswered questions".
Questioned about the decision to re-examine the case, Flack's lawyer, Jonathan Coad, suggested that the Met Police's relationship with the media may not be "entirely as it should be", telling Sky News: "One suspects the reason why police made this decision was to appease the press pressure, which I remember being there... that she should be charged to rebut suggestions, 'oh, well she's had special treatment because she's a celebrity'."
He continued: "So, it may be that this decision, which indeed is unusual to appeal it, was driven by a desire not to fall foul of the press, and be criticised by the press, in which case is an entirely wrong reason for the appeal to be made."
Following Caroline's death, police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), conducted a review of the Met's decision to charge her, but did not find any misconduct. It did, however, ask the Met to apologise to Caroline's family for not recording the reason it appealed against the original CPS decision to only issue the presenter with a caution.
The force apologised in February last year, but Christine Flack rejected this, the BBC reported at the time.
The Met confirmed on 11 April that a new complaint was made by Flack's family last week which it referred to the IOPC.
In a statement to the Press Association, the Met said that the IOPC decided that "the majority of the matters had previously been dealt with and no further action was required" but "one aspect" of the complaint had been returned to the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) for further consideration.
That, the Met said, relates to the "actions of officers in appealing an initial decision by the CPS not to charge Ms Flack, and because new witness evidence may be available". DPS officers are now making "further enquiries in relation to this".
The IOPC issued a statement confirming this.
Christine told the Mirror that she made the complaint to try to "compel" the officer who was at her daughter's arrest "to give the statement we think he should have given four years ago".
"We won't stop until we get the truth," she told the publication.
As Byline Times’ investigation spread across the British press, the journalists behind the exclusive, Dan Evans and Tom Latchem, spoke about how they went about investigating the case and uncovering fresh evidence.
Evans explained that, after the pair broke the Dan Wootton story for this newspaper, they approached Caroline Flack's family "to see if we could help her get those answers" and through "forensic investigative reporting" discovered that an arresting officer who had played a role in reversing the charging decision – but who had never been named publicly – had left the Met before the inquest took place in 2020, but returned to the force last year.
"This meant he had never given a statement about his role, leaving a gap in Christine's knowledge of what happened on the night of Caroline's arrest," Evans said.
"Tom and I were thrilled that Christine was able to use our findings to lobby the Met, which has announced its Directorate of Professional Standards is seeking to now bridge this gap in the evidence. It’s a breakthrough in the Flack family’s understanding of Caroline's arrest and subsequent charge."
Latchem added: "Christine is a grieving mother and deserves to know the full truth about what happened in the lead up to her daughter's death. We’re happy to have contributed even in a small way, and we will continue to ensure no stone goes unturned.
"At a time when media outlets are cutting funding for investigative journalism to the bone, our ongoing work with Byline Times seeking justice for Caroline, along with the Dan Wootton investigation, and all our other investigative work, shows how important public interest journalism can be for holding power to account."
British singer Olly Murs will headline the Flackstock festival, when it returns for its third year on 22 July. Money raised will be split equally between charities Choose Love, Mind, the Samaritans, and the Charlie Waller Trust.
Princess Diana ‘Phone Pest’ Story Links Both Rupert Murdoch and Piers Morgan to the ‘Criminal-Media Nexus’ of Police Corruption
A newly pleaded document submitted by Prince Harry’s legal team last month as part of his ongoing case against Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers for privacy intrusion sheds more light on what former Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the "criminal-media nexus” of journalists, private investigators and corrupt cops during the heyday of the tabloids.
In an amended claim over alleged unlawful information gathering in the case of HRH Duke of Sussex v News Group Newspapers, the claimants have lodged a notorious News of the World front page, dated 21 August 1994, carrying an exclusive story alleging that Princess Diana was a ‘phone pest’.
The story can only have come from police sources and so implicates both the then Editor of the now defunct News of the World, Piers Morgan, his then Chief Crime Reporter (now Editor of the Express) Gary Jones, and the proprietor Rupert Murdoch himself in the roaring trade between the tabloids and corrupt police officers.
At the centre of it all – and at the centre of many of the ongoing civil claims against both Murdoch’s newspapers, Mirror Group, and the Mail titles – is the role of the infamous detective agency, Southern Investigations, and the murder of its co-founder Daniel Morgan.
Police and Tabloid Corruption
Daniel Morgan was alleged to have been investigating police corruption when he was axed to death in a south London pub car park in March 1987.
His business partner, Jonathan Rees, was the prime suspect. Rees was arrested a few weeks later, along with one of the lead detectives on the initial murder inquiry, Detective Sergeant Sid Fillery.
At the inquest into Morgan's death in 1988, evidence emerged that Rees and Fillery had colluded in covering up the murder. By this point, Fillery had retired from the Metropolitan Police and taken Morgan’s place at the detective agency.
Southern Investigations was now on its way to becoming a one-stop-shop for the ‘dark arts’ of unlawful newsgathering for the tabloids.
Alastair Morgan, his partner Kirsteen Knight, and solicitor Raju Bhatt at the 2021 publication of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report. Photo: Kirsty O'Connor/PA/Alamy
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Southern Investigations became the main hub for selling confidential personal and financial information to the press obtained by phone-tapping, burglary, covert surveillance, and computer hacking.
Its major purchaser was Alex Marunchak, News Editor of the News of the World.
Rees and Fillery were also instrumental in training up a raft of Fleet Street journalists in subterfuge and surveillance – the most notable of which was Mazher Mahmood, the Sunday tabloid’s famous ‘fake sheikh’.
One of the main sources of both this illicit information, and the techniques for gathering it, was a network of corrupt police officers in south-east London. The trade was so extensive the CID in the area was known as the ‘News of the World Regional Crime Squad’.
Rees and Fillery’s close relationship with organised crime, and the ‘firm within a firm’ of corrupt Met Police officers, saw them engaged in a roaring trade with News International. But, even if the amounts of money siphoned-off to Southern Investigations didn’t attract the attention of the company’s proprietor, Rupert Murdoch, the political dimensions of their dark arts surely would have.
When the then Culture Secretary David Mellor suggested in 1991 that the “popular press is drinking in the last chance saloon”, Southern Investigations set up the surveillance and bugging devices to expose him in an extramarital affair.
Rees and Fillery were also instrumental in the brokering of letters stolen from Paddy Ashdown’s solicitor, showing that the Liberal Democrat Leader had also once had an extramarital affair. The information was revealed just before the 1992 General Election.
In effect, Southern Investigations and Alex Marunchak were becoming masters of politically targeted kompromat – years before the Russian term was well-known. But where do Piers Morgan and Express Editor Gary Jones fit in? And what did Rupert Murdoch know?
The Phone Pest Story
The following is an edited extract from 'Who Killed Daniel Morgan?’, which I co-authored with Daniel Morgan's brother Alastair Morgan
Piers Morgan took over the Editorship of the News of the World at the age of 28 in February 1994, at the height of the tabloid frenzy around the break-up of the marriage of Princess Diana and Prince Charles.
Morgan's only journalistic experience to date was penning the ‘Bizarre’ celebrity column at The Sun. He appointed an even younger Rebekah Brooks to become Features Editor that spring.
Given his inexperience with reporting, Morgan relied heavily on the older guard at the newspaper, especially his then News Editor, Alex Marunchak, whom he described as having a “deadpan, half-Ukrainian, moustachioed visage”.
Marunchak’s police sources would soon land Morgan in trouble.
Piers Morgan, who went on to become Editor of the Mirror, after the High Court ruled there was "extensive" phone-hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers from 2006 to 2011. Photo: PA Images/Alamy
In his autobiography The Insider, Morgan explains how, in August 1994, Marunchak and Chief Crime Reporter Gary Jones walked into the Editor’s office in Wapping and explained: “Got rather a big one here, boss. Diana’s a phone pest.” Marunchak went on to elaborate: “The cops are investigating hundreds of calls she has made to a married art dealer called Oliver Hoare.”
Jones backed up his News Editor with “a read-out from the police report" which he then quoted verbatim.
Hoare had received hundreds of silent, anonymous phone calls and reported them to the police. With the help of British Telecom, the police had traced the calls to Kensington Palace, the home of Princess Diana.
When Hoare was informed of the source of the calls, he told police officers that he and his wife were friends of Charles and Diana and he had been – according to the police report – “consoling her and becoming quite close to her” after her separation from the then heir to the throne.
The News of the World called the antique dealer for comment. Hoare did not deny there had been a police investigation. Under the bylines of Gary Jones and Royal Reporter Clive Goodman, the News of the World splashed the story over the front and four inside pages.
The details in the exclusive could only have come from the police documents: the date of Hoare’s first complaint, the involvement of BT’s specialist Nuisance Calls Bureau, the special code BT was given to trace the calls, the activation of the code on 13 January 1994, transcripts of six silent calls, and then the tracing equipment which linked the calls to a private number used by Prince Charles.
All of this detailed information could only have been sourced from the police.
The next day, in a long interview in the Daily Mail, Princess Diana denied the story.
Piers Morgan began to worry that he had made a huge career blunder. There were calls for him to resign. Marunchak tried to reassure the News of the World Editor by telling him: “We’ve had the report read to us, she’s lying." But Morgan still feared that the document could be a forgery.
“I felt sick to the pit of my stomach,” Morgan recalled in The Insider. “I couldn’t eat or even drink a cup of tea, it was hellish.”
What Murdoch Knew
The only thing that finally put Morgan's mind at rest was a call from his proprietor, Rupert Murdoch.
“Hi Piers,” Murdoch said. “I can’t really talk for long but I just wanted you to know that your story is 100% bang on. Can’t tell you how I know, but I just know.”
He then instructed his Editor to get on TV and tell the world that Princess Diana is "a liar", and to promise more material in the Sunday tabloid the following week.
Though relieved, Morgan couldn’t help admitting to Murdoch that he didn’t have any more material. Murdoch replied: “Oh, you will have by Sunday, don’t worry. Gotta go. Good luck.”
How had Murdoch independently verified the story? It was Alex Marunchak who had seen the police report. Would the proprietor have checked with his veteran News Editor?
At the Leveson Inquiry into the practices, culture and ethics of the press in 2012 – following the exposure of the phone-hacking scandal the year before – Murdoch explicitly denied even remembering meeting Marunchak. But, in careful legal language guarding against any surviving photos, he added: "I might have shaken hands, walking through the office."
By that point, Marunchak had served in a number of senior roles at the News of the World from his first days in the Wapping dispute, attending parties with the News International CEO and senior police officers, to being made Editor of the Irish edition two decades later.
Steve Grayson, a freelance photographer who worked at the Sunday tabloid in the late 1990s, recalls Marunchak explicitly saying that he had a direct call from Murdoch on one occasion.
Despite his growing global influence, there is also no doubt that, during this era, Murdoch himself still called senior management at the newspaper most Friday or Saturday nights to check what stories were coming up. And there’s more evidence that Murdoch was well aware of the existence of Marunchak, who had served his company for more than 25 years.
Prince Harry with his lawyer David Sherborne at the High Court during his recent trial against Mirror Group Newspapers. Photo: PA/Alamy
In correspondence from September 1997, the then Taoiseach of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, wrote personally to Murdoch to thank him for the News of the World’s coverage of the country's General Election. He said he particularly “appreciated the very professional approach of your Associate Editor Alex Marunchak”. Ahern even asked Murdoch to pass on “my thanks and best wishes to Alex”.
Murdoch replied on 30 September 1997: “I shall be delighted to pass on your comments.”
Whatever Murdoch’s uncertain memories of Alex Marunchak, the ultimate source of Piers Morgan’s scoop was a confidential police file. Later, Morgan was careful to say that the source wasn’t a ‘serving police officer’ – partly because that would have opened him, and any police officer, up to criminal charges.
Nobody was censured or sanctioned for the phone pest story. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Gary Jones went on to win the Press Gazette’s Reporter of the Year Award, partly due to his News of the World exclusive about Diana’s anonymous calls.
Criticised by the then Press Complaints Council for another intrusive royal splash, Morgan would leave the Murdoch Sunday tabloid in 1995 and take up an even more senior position editing its rival, the Daily Mirror.
He would soon bring over Jones and, with him, the dark arts of Sid Fillery and Jonathan Rees.
Ongoing Trials
While the judge has not ruled whether Prince Harry’s claims can date back to 1994 and the targeting of his mother, the evidence of Gary Jones’ relationship with Southern Investigations has already been heard in the case of the Duke of Sussex and other claimants against Mirror Group Newspapers.
The judge in that case, Justice Fancourt, concluded that Piers Morgan, as Editor of the Mirror newspapers, must have known about phone-hacking and other unlawful information gathering.
Meanwhile, similar evidence is due to be heard in the pending claims by Prince Harry and others (including Baroness Doreen Lawrence) in claims against the publishers of the Mail and Mail on Sunday.
According to the particulars of claim issued so far, Associated Newspapers also procured the services of private investigators involved in illicit information, including allegations that Southern Investigations were involved in targeting the family of Stephen Lawrence, murdered by a racist gang connected to the south-east London underworld in 1993.
Like the tabloids used to say, this story will run and run.
Young Black Business Owner Describes ‘Traumatising and Humiliating’ Met Police Stop & Search Experience
A young black owner of an electrical contractor business stopped and searched on his way home from work by Met Police officers who allegedly told him he “didn’t look like” an electrician has described the experience as “traumatising and humiliating”.
Despite being just 23, Josh King employs 15 staff at KK Electrical Contractor Limited and inspires youngsters into construction work with motivational TikTok videos posted on his account.
Earlier this week a video taken by a member of the public went viral showing King and three colleagues – all wearing company-branded clothing – being dragged out of their car by police, and handcuffed while officers searched them. One of the men was arrested for carrying an electrician’s knife.
King’s 90-minute ordeal last September came around six months after Baroness Casey’s report into The Met called for a “reset” on the force’s stop-and-search policy, saying black people aged between 11 and 61 were at least three and a half times more likely to be stopped than white people in London every year since 2016.
King acknowledged police have a "difficult job", but said the way they dealt with him and his workmates was "not acceptable".
“So many [black] people face the same experience and loads have been reaching out to tell me it has happened to them, " he told Byline Times. "Thankfully what happened to us was captured on camera. How many [black people] are stopped and searched but don’t have that? It’s scary."
King said despite coming from a deprived area he has been "blessed to be on the right path" and is trying to get young people into work, yet, "I'm still being looked at as a criminal because of how I look, which is wrong." He added: “The police should have shown us more respect.”
King, from Peckham, Southeast London, qualified as an electrician aged 20 and his firm manages electrical fitouts for office projects around the southeast. With most of the materials provided, King sometimes uses his black Mercedes CLA to get to and from work and fills the boot with tools.
On 13 September 2023, King and his colleagues were driving through Clapham, on the way back from a job in Guildford, Surrey, when they were stopped by officers in a police van parked by the side of the road.
King couldn't understand why he had been stopped, and when he asked, "they dragged us out, and put us in handcuffs. They took us into their van, searched us and made us take off our shoes. It was humiliating."
He said officers told him they didn't check his car registration, and had simply stopped him "because I had a nice car".
"They don’t know my story, or who I am. Why can’t I drive a nice car? It’s not a reasonable explanation. It made me feel upset," King explained, adding that one officer event commented that the group "don’t look like electricians" despite being in their work uniforms, and in possession of construction cards.
"It’s crazy – what does an electrician look like? What does a doctor look like? What does a lawyer look like? It was blatant racism. It’s wrong.”
Because the men had packed up quickly on site to avoid traffic, one of King’s 20-year-old colleagues had an electrician’s lock knife in his pocket. The men explained it was used for cutting thick electrical cables, but the youngster was arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon.
“They were waving the knife about to passers-by as if to justify their actions. It was embarrassing,” King said.
King and two of his colleagues were let go, but the workmate with the lock knife, who declined to be named, was held for 24-hours. On 11 January he was told he would face no further charges.
King said his workmate was "really distressed" by the situation, having "never been in trouble in his life".
King, who has never been stopped and searched before, says he would like The Met to say sorry for the "traumatising experience", and give him the opportunity to work with the force to help reduce crime.
Speaking directly to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, King said he was not "slagging off the police" by speaking out, and acknowledges the capital has an "issue" with knife crime, but he hopes to turn this "negative into a positive".
King wants to help the Met "in a small way to tackle knife crime by inspiring young people to change their lives through working in construction.
“I want to speak about how I became someone who employs 15 staff, pays taxes, works by the book, having been working since I left school at 16. “If the police can supply classes for me to speak to young people [at risk of falling into knife crime] and give them advice and direction, I would do it.”
Commander Claire Smart, responsible for the Met Taskforce, said the group was searched after a passenger in the car "was seen attempting to hide a lock knife in a door compartment following a traffic stop".
"Possession of a lock knife can be illegal and officers thought the man's attempt to hide it was suspicious," she explained, before adding that the Crown Prosecution Service had later decided he should face no further action.
Smart continued: "When done right, stop and search is an effective tool and officers take 4,000 dangerous weapons off our streets every year as a result of this tactic.
"We know nonetheless stop and search has a significant impact on our communities which we are keen to better understand."
Smart said despite no formal complaint being made, she would "welcome the opportunity" to meet King to discuss the matter further and hear his concerns.
Revealed: Met Police ‘Exit Data’ Shows Just How Bad it is to Work there for Some Staff
Black and ethnic minority Metropolitan Police employees are four times more likely to quit due to bullying and harassment than their white colleagues, according to internal data obtained by Byline Times.
The figures, from March 2023, also show employees of colour are five times more likely to resign due to discrimination compared to white colleagues, and that females were three times more likely to resign due to bullying, harassment and discrimination than men.
One-fifth of all female leavers cited bullying and harassment as the reason for quitting, compared to 9% of men.
The findings come after Byline Times reported last month that Amina Ahmed, a senior female Asian Met employee, quit her job citing an “environment [of] discrimination, bullying and harassment”, one week after the National Black Police Association (NBPA) called for a boycott of the Met by people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
NBPA president, Andy George, said that the data on resignations "comes as no shock to our members" as their “lived experiences of working in the Met is one of hostility from colleagues and a lack of support from managers".
George believes that Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley "has tried to engage in a PR exercise" to highlight reforms being made, but "this data shows that things are not as they appear".
“The Met has also taken no action to reduce the disproportionality in the misconduct system despite Baroness Casey highlighting that black officers were 81% more likely to be disciplined," he added.
“The Met must take a step back, confront the reality of racism in the force, and bring about meaningful and impactful changes rather than engaging in a PR campaign which dismisses the experiences of black, Asian and minority ethnic officers and staff”.
Miss Ahmed told Byline Times that black, ethnic minority and female Met employees were leaving “in their droves” due to the “toxic” environment.
The Met responded by saying it was undertaking “extensive work” to “address valid concerns about disproportionality and to provide officers and staff from all backgrounds with the confidence that they will be supported to succeed and progress in their careers”.
The Met’s so-called ‘exit data’, generated during interviews with those leaving in the year ending March 2023 – the same month that Baroness Casey’s report found the force was "systematically misogynist and racist" – revealed that 13% of all leavers had reported having “experienced or witnessed bullying or harassment” in the previous 12 months. The figure rose to 27% across their career in the Met.
It suggests disproportionately high levels of staff who are leaving the Met come from black or ethnic minority backgrounds (26% compared to the 19% of the workforce who are from those communities), or are female (42% compared to the 37% of workforce who are women).
Forty per cent of black and ethnic minority leavers said they had experienced or witnessed bullying or harassment in the past 12 months, rising to 46% across their time on the force. That compares to 11% of white staff.
Almost half (49%) of female leavers said they had experienced or witnessed bullying or harassment during their employment, compared to 19% of men, with 32% having experienced it in the past year, compared to 11% of men.
The Met’s publicly available HR workforce data, published in November 2023, shows that there are no chief superintendents or commanders who are female and from an ethnic minority background. Only 7% of all chief superintendents and commanders are from ethnic minority backgrounds, despite these individuals making up 46% of London’s population.
Despite an uplift in the overall number of police officers, sergeants and inspectors between December 2022 to November 2023, the percentage drawn from ethnic minority backgrounds has remained stagnant, with the biggest uplift in sergeants being those who are white.
The percentage of detective inspectors from ethnic minority backgrounds fell by 7% (from 67 to 62) between December 2022 and November 2023. Only 6% of superintendents are from ethnic minority backgrounds, numbering six compared to 104 who are white.
Revealed: Scotland Yard’s Anti-Corruption and Abuse Hotline Inundated with Calls
There have been more than 2,400 calls to the Metropolitan Police’s anti-corruption and abuse hotline since its creation, Byline Times can reveal.
The hotline was set up in November 2022 to allow the public to report concerns about officers, in the wake of a number of scandals including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens. At the time, serial rapist officer David Carrick was awaiting trial for his crimes.
A national version for the rest of England and Wales is set to be rolled out shortly, with Crimestoppers, the charity that runs the Met’s hotline, being awarded a contract for the service last month.
The Met insists that the hotline is a “valuable tool” in its efforts to root out those who should not be serving despite its Freedom of Information (FOI) department repeatedly stating that the force did not receive information about the number of calls and online reports made to it.
After a challenge to its denial that it had a figure, the FOI officer insisted it did not have the data but stated she had specifically contacted Crimestoppers for the information and was providing it as “a gesture of goodwill” rather than data it is obliged to disclose under FOI law.
The Met’s public log of FOI disclosures shows other people have also been told the Met does not hold the information about calls to its hotline.
However more than a week after the Byline Times questioned how useful the service can be if the force does not monitor how many people are contacting it, a spokesperson said it is kept “regularly informed” about the number of calls it receives and they could not explain the FOI officer’s response.
The spokesperson added: “We took the unprecedented step of providing the public with an anonymous route to report concerns or share information about a police officer or member of staff working in the Met who may be corrupt or abusive.
“The hotline is a valuable tool in our overall efforts to root out anyone who is not fit to remain in the organisation.”
National Black Police Association (NBPA) president Andy George said it was “disappointing” that the FOI team appeared to be unaware that the force held data on calls received.
While the Byline Times was waiting to hear back on its challenge to the non-disclosure of the information, Caroline Pidgeon, a Liberal Democrat member of the London Assembly, put a similar question to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
She was told that 2,400 calls or online contacts were made to the service up to 15 January 2024. Of those, 727 had resulted in intelligence reports being passed to the Met’s Department of Professional Standards with further investigation believed necessary in 217 instances.
Khan’s officers said that 128 of the 727 intelligence reports fell into categories related to abuse or control of partners, crossing professional boundaries for sexual purposes or racist, homophobic or misogynistic conduct.
They said it was not possible to provide figures on how many allegations have been proven as many of the reports are still being investigated.
Pidgeon told this newspaper: “These figures only go to show the need for the Met to speed up cultural reform. The Baroness Casey review and the Angiolini report demonstrate a desperate need for the Met to rebuild public trust in their service, especially among women and girls.
“The anti-corruption helpline is one tool among many that must be effectively used to completely overhaul the Met's culture.”
She called for the government to make changes to regulations to help speed up disciplinary cases, and added: “It is vital that the reform efforts of the Met are implemented as soon as possible and that ongoing investigations are finalised at a faster rate.”
In March 2023, just over three months after the Met’s hotline was set up, chief constables of other forces discussed establishing a national version of the service after being told that it had already received 55 calls related to officers outside of the capital.
To date, 95 reports to the service have related to officers working outside London.
National Hotline Due
The national hotline is expected to be unveiled in the coming days after Crimestoppers was awarded a £30,000 four-year contract to run it last month.
Andrew George, of the NBPA, said: “The rollout of a national hotline to report wrongdoing by police officers is a welcome measure but the NBPA is concerned that this does not adequately deal with the issues surrounding officers like Couzens and Carrick let alone others who commit inappropriate or discriminatory behaviours.”
He said that there were reports about, and missed opportunities to deal with, Couzens and Carrick, which a hotline would not have resolved without other complaints and misconduct issues being addressed. He added that he would also have hoped for more research and insights to be gleaned from the Met’s hotline before another was established.
“Our members continue to see racism, misogyny and other discriminatory behaviours go unpunished whilst they appear to be held to a much higher standard,” he said.
Rick Muir, chief executive of the Police Foundation think tank, said the number of people calling the hotline sounds like a “decent response” from the public and that it probably led to important information being learned.
“I think it’s an important part of [efforts to regain trust] as well as its new unit that is looking for such cases in a more proactive way,” he added.
“In taking on more of these cases, which is obviously the right thing to do, you also generate a lot of negative publicity. I think there’s an expectation in policing that we’ll see more of these cases going to court so for a year or two we may see trust go down further and it will only be after they’ve got through those that trust can start to rise again.”
Palestine Protesters Vow to Keep Marching Despite Fresh Clampdown Threats, as Muslim Council Blasts Islamophobic Rhetoric
Pro-Palestine groups and human rights campaigners have vowed to oppose “growing attacks” against the right to protest in the UK, as politicians and parts of the press ramp up the rhetoric against the Gaza ceasefire demonstrations taking place weekly across the country.
On Tuesday night, Home Secretary James Cleverly suggested pro-ceasefire marchers should stop protesting, telling the Times that they’ve “made their point” and are “not really saying anything new”.
And some Government-linked figures are now pushing for a fresh raft of anti-protest laws – including Lord Woodcock (Baron Walney), the UK Government’s adviser on political violence and disruption.
This week, he claimed that the “aggressive intimidation of MPs” by so-called “mobs” was being “mistaken” for an “expression of democracy” as he called for an ‘exclusion zone’ to be placed outside of Parliament to restrict protest, in the name of protecting MPs.
There have also been calls to ban political messages being projected onto Parliament, as happened last week when activists projected the contested slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” onto the Palace of Westminster.
"Overwhelmingly Peaceful"
At a press conference on Wednesday, Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal hit back at the calls for fresh clampdowns, and said peaceful protesters were being wrongly tarred as extremists.
He pointed to a mass lobby event last week, which saw 3,000 people “stand in line for four hours to speak to their MPs.” Another 80,000 people wrote to their MPs to back an immediate ceasefire.
“It was presented as a suspicious act by Islamist extremists seeking to threaten and intimidate MPs. This narrative is now being used to suggest that special measures need to be introduced…banning or restricting the rights to protest outside MPs’ offices, council chambers, and parliament itself.
“We do not accept in any way shape or form that there is something problematic with peaceful protests. outside entities offices, council chambers of Parliament,” Jamal added.
And the PSC director asserted that the official marches have been “overwhelmingly peaceful”, and attended by a wide range of communities.
“As to the narrative that they are making the streets unsafe for Jewish people, it ignores the fact that at each of these marches there are 1,000s of Jewish people marching in an organised Jewish bloc. All of them feel safe marching. And all of them, by the way, proudly chant the Palestinian slogan of liberation ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’” Jamal said.
The chant has been criticised as antisemitic by some for the suggestion that it could suggest the abolition or destruction of the state of Israel from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, a claim PSC and Stop the War Coalition strongly deny.
Chris Nineham, national officer for the Stop the War Coalition – a co-organiser of the protests – said that despite the “extraordinary level of hysteria” the protests have been “overwhelmingly peaceful”.
“It's the biggest cycle of protests we’ve seen…But there has been a tiny number of arrests. At the last demonstration, there were a total of 12 arrests and on average, the number of arrests is three times less than the number of arrests in an average year at Glastonbury, per person involved. The number of arrests is less than the average Premier League football match per person involved.
“The overwhelming majority of these arrests are for wearing an [offensive] t-shirt, having a placard, or chanting a slogan that the police rejected. None of it is necessarily illegal…The overwhelming majority of arrests don't lead to charges as far as we can tell.
“There is not a single example on any of our demonstrations of any violent incident towards a bystander of any kind, whether a politician or anyone else. There is simply no case to be made that these demonstrations are threatening, disorderly, violent in any way.
"The argument that they are is a complete fantasy. It's a fiction dreamed up…largely in these corridors of power and then amplified by sections of the media,” Nineham told press.
Over-Policing Claims
The Gaza protests have faced intense scrutiny from the political Right, with former Home Secretary Suella Braverman going as far as to push for a ban on a November demonstration.
Nineham said the police remained under intense pressure to clamp down on their protests: “Since [November] they have tried to stop his marching into the centres of power. At least twice, we've had a strong attempt to stop us marching towards Downing Street and Parliament.”
He claimed police had rolled out an “unprecedented” number of restriction orders – so-called Section 12, 14 and 60 orders which place limits on protests.
“[They] have been deployed against all of the [Gaza] demonstrations…[They] haven't been applied to comparable mass protests over trade union issues, austerity issues, or actually over the Iraq war, the wars in Libya or Ukraine.
“There's been a level of aggression in policing, a kind of over-policing that’s been exceptional as well. The police say they use record numbers of officers, and they mobilise record numbers [against our] protests.
“Just to give you some indication, they tell us there are about 1700-1800 police officers for most of these demonstrations. At Pride on an average year, there's 150 officers that are deployed, which is an event maybe half the size of our average protest.”
Nineham alleged that police themselves have said repeatedly to demonstrators that they are under “huge pressure” from politicians.
“This whole movement is being attacked, we believe as a way of deflecting from the central problem, which is that the overwhelming majority of people in this country want to see a ceasefire, and our Government refuses to back that demand.”
Asked by Byline Times whether he expects Sir Keir Starmer to repeal anti-protest laws if elected this year, host John McDonnell MP said: “Across the Labour and trade union movement, there's a real anxiety now about the way in which fundamental human rights are under attack by this Government."
“There will be a general view within the whole of the movement that what we need to do is reassert our civil liberties. That may well result in some of the legislation we’ve seen so far being repealed," the Labour left-winger added.
Yasmine Adam, head of politics at the Muslim Council of Britain told the conference she believed much of the rhetoric against the Gaza protests was driven by Islamophobia, with peaceful Muslims presented as extremists. Hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters have been tainted as "mob" by senior Conservatives and some commentators.
Ased if she believes Labour and the Conservatives are institutionally Islamophobic, she said: “Yes.” PM Sunak and most ministers refuse to use the word "Islamophobic", instead using the phrase "anti-Muslim hate".
Amid concerns over MPs’ safety, Yasmine Adam pointed to an alleged failure to address safety concerns from pro-Palestine MPs. Labour’s Zarah Sultana has “faced huge numbers of threats because of her outspokenness on Palestine,” she said.
“[Yet] Keir Starmer has refused to raise those concerns when talking about MPs’ safety for example. When Zarah Sultana asked at PMQs for an end to the genocide, the PM’s reply was [basically] ‘she should ask Hamas and the Houthis to stop the killing’.
“If that's not Islamophobic, I don't really know what it is. It's so widespread and normalised that it’s second nature to these parties.”
On Wednesday, the Government announced a £31m package to provide extra security measures for MPs.
Non-profit monitoring group Tell Mama documented 2,010 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February, the BBC reported last week, marking a sharp rise from the 600 it recorded for the same period the year before.
All the organisers said they were committed to continuing the protests, at least until there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
The press conference came as the courts considered a claim by Liberty and other human rights groups today challenging the legality of recent anti-protest legislation.
Government Responds
Asked by Byline Times if the Government was putting pressure on the police to clamp down on Gaza protests, the PM's spokesman said: "No, we obviously do completely continue to enshrine the operational independence of the police."
The official spokesman claimed that a Government-organised meeting this Wednesday of the PM and the National Police Chiefs Council was "normal".
"The Prime minister and Home Secretary have regularly met with police chiefs to talk about the issues that communities people [have]...This afternoon's roundtable will also address the additional funding that we're providing to protect our democratic processes and institutions."
He denied that pressure would be applied to police chiefs to take a tougher line on Gaza protests, saying: "No, there will be a discussion consistent with our approach...It's entirely routine and normal...to talk to the police about the operational challenges that they face, but also the concerns that people in this country face."
Do you have a story that needs highlighting? Get in touch by emailing josiah@bylinetimes.com
Met Police Ignored Serious Sexual Allegations Against Male Officers – Whistleblower
A senior female Asian Metropolitan Police whistleblower has told Byline Times that allegations of violence, sexual assault, and even rape made by her female colleagues against serving officers went ignored.
Amina Ahmed was revealed last week by this newspaper to have resigned from the force saying systematic discrimination, racism and misogyny had damaged her career and mental health.
In her resignation letter Ms Ahmed referred to how, following the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021, The Met had organised ‘listening groups’ attended by senior management to “empower” staff to speak openly about the issues they had faced working in the force.
But according to Ahmed, a Muslim ‘leadership facilitator’ who won praise for her role attempting to improve diversity in The Met, those who made serious allegations discrimination and even criminality in the ‘safe space’ meetings were patronised, ignored and even “ostracised”.
She claims she was warned by one female colleague to “keep quiet” about allegations made in the listening groups that the force has among its senior ranks “racist and misogynist” ‘Freemasons’.
Now the Met’s failure to act on complaints is, says Ahmed - a data analyst who has done significant research into ‘attrition’ rates in The Met using its own internal figures - leading female and ethnic minority police staff to leave the organisation “in their droves”.
In her first interview since leaving her job without a pay-off to “protect” her mental health, Ahmed told Byline Times: “Things appear to have got worse. People are being ostracised for speaking out.
“Ethnic minority and women police officers I know have faced repercussions by speaking out, but they are still doing their job, because they are selfless, amazing, kind human beings.
“I commend them for it and my thoughts are with them, always. I just do not have the energy to do it any longer, not from the inside anyway.”
Referring to this month’s “extraordinary” call by the National Black Police Association for ethnic minorities to boycott joining, the 39-year-old single mum-of-two children, aged 10 and 11, added: “Would I recommend an ethnic minority person to join the police with all the systemic issues, and how traumatising it is? No.
“Would I want my children to join when they are older? No way, absolutely not. This ultimately means things can never change. It’s incredibly sad.”
Ahmed joined the Met as an admin officer in January 2009. But it was after she moved into a role supporting police officers in investigations using number plate recognition in 2016 that Ahmed realised how “toxic” the atmosphere was on the force.
“Some were racist, and would complain about immigration, and Black people, but nothing was ever done,” she recalls, citing one example where a young Black officer who was himself moved departments after complaining about a ‘racist’ colleague.
“Misogyny was the worst thing. They openly called women ‘slags’ and ‘whores’, or would brag about women they’d ‘shagged’. I was thinking, ‘These are the men women report rape and sexual assault to, it’s appalling’.”
Ahmed added: “In the end it became normal. I wish I’d had the courage to say something but I was on a low salary, newly separated, with two toddlers, so I kept my head down. That’s when my depression and anxiety first set in. I got no help from management.”
Ahmed says things “went downhill” after a July 2020 promotion to a lead data analyst role inside the Met’s counter-terrorism unit in New Scotland Yard, as one of the most senior female Asian staff working in counter-terrorism.
Despite doing well, Ahmed says she felt “isolated” as a one-person team in which she would often have to work until 1am despite being a single mum of two young kids, while White staff in similar positions received support.
“The way people treated me, as an Asian woman, was very different to how
they would treat senior White male officers, particularly after I began to speak
out about my negative experiences of working in The Met.”
But she says the murder of Sarah Everard, and the Met’s reaction to that moment, was a moment of significant change for its female staff.
Ahmed, herself a domestic violence survivor, says Ms Everard’s killing by serving officer Wayne Couzens, “triggered a lot of feelings, with flashbacks of the stuff I would have to listen to from some male officers, and I kept thinking, ‘Couzens sounds like those guys.’
“Reflecting on where I’d failed to address concerning comments, I felt overwhelming guilt as they seemed more ominous than I’d perceived.”
Under the spotlight, The Met organised online ‘listening circles’ - events chaired by senior officers attended by up to 300 people, mainly women - which were an opportunity for Met staff to say how they felt about Everard’s murder, and their own experiences working in The Met.
Ahmed said: “It was emotional. Women talked about being sexually assaulted or harassed by male colleagues. Some told how they had been sexually assaulted in police vehicles. Some female employees spoke of domestic violence by their officer partners. One person relayed an attempted rape. Some really dark stuff.”
It was the first time Ahmed had spoken at work about her experiences both in the police and in life. “The way I was treated changed overnight: I was treated like a disease. I couldn’t work out what I had done wrong. I guess there was a feeling I was a ‘grass’.”
She was not alone. Ahmed says while management in the listening circles would apologise and make promises of change, while advising how to make formal complaints, “nothing was done” and “none of the women got help or support.
“If anything, women who pursued complaints were ostracised, rather than the perpetrators. The most they would do is move the victim to another department.
“Men facing official complaints would sometimes get support from their boys and be promoted but for many women it was a career ending move and had such a negative impact on their mental health. While [the listening circles] aim was to get people talking, it had the opposite effect.”
Ahmed says because she continued to challenge racism and misogyny in The Met, her mental health was struggling. One of her seniors, she claims, “said it wasn’t their problem and I needed to sort it out”. Another, she says, claimed Ahmed was “too sensitive and emotional”.
“There was zero compassion; they gaslighted my lived experiences in The Met, saying it was ‘all in the past’ and ‘we don’t have those issues any more’, or suggesting it was all in my head. I had a breakdown.”
Ahmed put in an official complaint against two of her managers. “The grievance assessors are in the Met themselves [so] it didn't go anywhere. I now see why nobody wants to [make an official complaint]. You do not win.”
A spokesman for The Met said: “We are aware of the statements made by Ms Ahmed following her resignation relating to alleged wrongdoing by colleagues. This was investigated under Met grievance procedures in 2022 but there was insufficient evidence to indicate misconduct by any officer or staff member.”
In late 2022, Ahmed organised in-person listening circles - initially for women only, and for domestic violence survivors. What she learned shocked her.
“There was a lot of [discussion] about Freemasons throughout The Met. They said some Masons would talk about it openly, while others had partners in the police who were Masons.
“One female officer asked to meet me away from work on our day off, and told me she had been invited by Masons to a ‘fuck-buddy’ circle - kind of like a swinging club - which she said if women partake they’re more likely to get promoted.
“But she said that since she’d said no, she’d been ostracised, sidelined, and never been promoted. She is an extremely intelligent woman. Every time she mentioned it to her manager she was told to keep quiet about it.
“Another warned me to be careful as the Masons could be ‘dangerous’ and make my life ‘a living hell’. I relayed all this to [senior management] but nothing happened.”
The mysterious men’s-only group is not on The Met’s barred list and members are alleged to aid one another’s career progression and protect each other from disciplinary action.
When Ahmed shared her resignation letter on LinkedIn, one person replied to relay a story of a police officer friend who’d been targeted by Masons in The Met in the 1980s.
They wrote: “He had been strongly advised by a training sergeant to join the local Freemasons lodge if he wanted job security or access to promotion. His views on [Black] people changed from accepting them as our friends to people to specifically target as potential criminals. There seems to have been little change over the years.”
Ahmed, using her data analytic skills, also contributed to the Race Action Plan, which aims to ‘build an anti-racist police service and address race disparities affecting Black people working within or interacting with policing’, but says some of her seniors “didn’t like the data I was sharing as it made them look bad, and I would be shot down” and “told to hide certain datasets, and focus on positives. They would say things were changing and I was basically told to drop it.”
In March 2023, Ahmed became a facilitator on an aspiring leaders programme for ethnic minority officers. She was staggered by how “deflated” they seemed.
“Some Black constables are the most intelligent, articulate officers I’ve met, but were never promoted and felt they never would be. Some told me how they would be stopped and searched on police premises; others complained about racism in groups where they were ignored by White officers; others were referred to as ‘troublemakers’. Some felt suicidal.
“Trumped up disciplinaries were created for those who spoke out. It seemed to be a pattern. I shared this, but management got annoyed.”
Eventually, in September 2023, the detrimental effect of working in The Met got too much for Ahmed. “I was on a cocktail of meds for anxiety and had other health complications. Doctors have said they think it was the stress.
“I was very ill and completely out of it. I was bed-ridden for two months - my kids had to effectively look after themselves. I had a number of meetings about attendance and returning to work, where [my bosses] suggested I look for another job. So for my sanity - and to make sure I was still able to look after my kids - I quit.”
Ahmed added: “If I hadn’t resigned I feel I would have been pushed out. I felt I no longer had the ability to enact change inside, and the only way to do it is from outside.”
A Met Police spokesperson said: “The Met is committed to being anti-discriminatory in all we do, both in relation to our communities and our workforce.
“We seek to understand diverse perspectives and treat people according to their needs, creating a workplace that is accessible and inclusive to all, where everyone can thrive.
“There is extensive work ongoing to address valid concerns about disproportionality and to provide officers and staff from all backgrounds with the confidence that they will be supported to succeed and progress in their careers.
“This work has been, and will continue to be, influenced by the experience and insights of our officers, staff and volunteers.
“Allegations of wrongdoing are taken seriously and where officers and staff (including those who have left the organisation) have evidence to bring forward we would always encourage them to do so.”
Now setting up her own consultancy, Ahmed says the only way things can improve is through the wholesale change of senior management. “There are a lot of people in influential positions who are part of the problem; as such the situation won’t change.”
Making a personal plea to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, Ahmed said: “I can't imagine how hard it must be to be the Commissioner, as there are too many systemic issues for him to change anything anytime soon.
“But I would suggest Mr Rowley think about humanity. He should start listening to people on the ground who have lived experience, and I would implore him to attend listening circles. It would make his staff feel listened to."