Susanna Reid, anchor of Good Morning Britain, has admitted to being ‘frightened’ about women’s safety following the Met Police investigation, which found the police to be ‘institutionally racist, sexist, and homophobic’.
The devastating assessment, commissioned in the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s death, warns that it is not up to the people to ‘keep themselves secure from the police’.
The force is accused of failing to protect women from violent officers throughout the 363-page study, and violence against women and girls is not regarded as seriously as other types of violence.
Susanna read out parts of the evaluation during a conversation with Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley on Tuesday’s GMB alongside Ed Balls.
She said: ‘One officer said, “If you look at our performance around rape, serious sexual offences, the detection rate is so low, you may as well say, it’s legal in London.”
‘And honestly, as I read that Sir Mark Rowley, I actually feel frightened.
‘Because that sort of message going out is not a helpful one to women in London.
‘What can you say today to reassure women in London who are at risk?’
Sir Mark replied: ‘Certainly we want victims to come forward, this year we’ve detected and solved around 200 more rapes than we did last year, victims are coming forward and we are doing a better job.’
He added: ‘Because victims have got more confidence in the last decade, we have four times the amount of rapes reported today than we did a decade ago.
‘That’s both good news, because it’s so underreported, it’s great more people are coming forward, that that’s created stretch in those departments that the resourcing and the decisions we made in recent year haven’t kept pace.
‘I’m trying to organise my resources as best to do that, the women can come forward and trust my people to do a good case with their cases.’
Sir Mark’s comments, including saying the report was ‘deeply sobering’, follow the review which included a gay officer saying he’s ‘scared of the police’ after colleagues ‘planned to target him with stop and search while he is off-duty and spread false rumours that he takes recreational drugs and has been involved in sexual relationships with senior officers’.
Likewise, a black officer who reportedly had a coercive connection with a senior colleague described how she is compelled to remain invisible at work, claiming that ‘it’s a ‘learn your place’ mentality, except your place is never there.’
Novelist Baroness Casey has called for a ‘total revamp’ of the police, which has been accused of taking a ‘check box’ attitude to a litany of past negative reports, instead blaming ‘bad apples’.
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1.
Source My Celebrity Life.
