A course taught to trainee detectives in the Metropolitan Police has been dropped after university lecturers said it was ‘racist, misogynistic and discriminatory’ and refused to teach it.
The training programme contained a case study which involved stereotypes of Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants as drug dealers, money launderers, rapists and child abusers, according to the Times.
The newspaper reports that the case study featured a role-playing scenario that centred on a Turkish drug dealer who uses a Gurkha knife to murder a Chinese money-launderer.
The training programme is taught at four London universities – Brunel, Anglia Ruskin, the University of West London and the University of East London – and is outsourced to a private company Babcock International.
According to the Times, the Met’s crime academy and retired officers helped draft and approve the case study, which also includes incest, throat-slitting, self-mutilation and attacks on a disabled child.
Part of the case study which has been shared across social has also been met by an outcry from the Turkish-speaking community as well as the Asian community.
In a statement, the Met said: “We would like to apologise to all communities and directly to the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot communities who have been affected, we are very sorry that this has caused so much upset and we understand why…
Saying following complaints the material was amended and having heard from community groups and members.
Adding: “We would like to encourage more community members to join the Community Reference Group and be an integral part of the design and delivery of training across all our programmes. We have already seen the impact our community led training has made on our recruits and their deeper understanding of communities across our diverse city…”
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