THE Met’s acting chief has told MPs that problems in the beleaguered force are “not a few bad apples”.
Sir Stephen House, appearing before the Home Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday, insisted the force was taking action to root out unacceptable behaviour “as fast as possible”.
Scotland Yard has faced a slew of damaging scandals, including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens, the revelation of racist, sexist and homophobic messages exchanged by a team at Charing Cross police station, and the strip-search of a Hackney teenager at school while she was menstruating.
The force’s former commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, was forced to resign from the top role after losing the confidence of mayor Sadiq Khan.
Sir Stephen, who is taking charge of the force on a temporary basis, said: “There is a significant campaign within the organisation to deal with this completely unacceptable behaviour, to root it out and to exit those people who are exhibiting that behaviour from the organisation as fast as possible and in the right way.”
Asked by MPs if it was just a “few bad people,” he replied: “People have talked about a few bad apples, quite clearly that’s not the situation at all, it’s not a few bad apples.
“You can’t simply say that Wayne Couzens and a couple of other people have done something wrong – that’s been the spearhead of the problem, I would suggest, but there is a wider issue within the organisation which we acknowledge and we are dealing with.”
Sir Stephen said he is now “less confident” that the Met will meet its recruitment targets for more officers on the beat, with the force needing to attract 40,000 applicants in the next year to replace officers who leave as well as attracting 1,800 new starters.