By Hafsa Khalil
Copyright bbc
Sir Mark became the force’s chief after the murder of Sarah Everard, who was killed by a serving officer, at the time he vowed to remove wrongdoers from the Met.
The commissioner described Panorama’s footage, obtained by secret filming, as “vile to watch”, calling the officers involved “ghastly, ghastly individuals”.
In the footage, serving Met Police officers can be seen calling for immigrants to be shot, revelling in the use of force and being dismissive of rape claims.
Sir Mark said he understood Londoners would feel “upset and angry” over the “toxic views” expressed. However, he said his force has done an “extraordinary amount” to root out such officers since the Casey Review, ordered after the murder of Sarah Everard in 2021 by serving police officer Wayne Couzens.
Pressed on whether he should have accepted the review’s finding that the Met was institutionally racist and misogynistic, Sir Mark insisted the Met was “part way through the biggest counter-corruption initiative policing has ever seen in this country”.
Nearly 1,500 men and women had been removed from the Met, he said, adding: “Londoners have my word, we won’t stop until it’s finished.”
When asked if he would apologise and take personal responsibility for what was uncovered in the investigation, he said he had apologised “several times” in his statement, adding that “everything the Met does” is his “personal responsibility”.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he had yet to see the BBC’s footage for himself, but called it “shocking” based on what had been described to him.
He said he was glad Sir Mark was responding, and called on him to be “very robust in his response.”
Parm Sandhu, a former chief superintendent in the Met, questioned how the force would “find the solutions” to the issues raised in the BBC’s investigation if it did not accept it had an “institutional problem”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday ahead of Sir Mark’s interview, she said she was “not surprised at all” by what Panorama had found, adding that the “behaviours are not new”.
“They’ve been exposed before, they’ve been buried before and they’ve been tolerated before, and every single time there’s a promise that the toxic culture will be rooted out, but it comes back every single time,” Sandhu said.
