Women & The Police: The Inside Story - Exposure
Reporter Julie Etchingham reports on a crisis in UK policing that is not just one of resources. Inside some police stations there are allegations that a disturbing and damaging culture of misogyny has been allowed to flourish.InWomen & The Police: The Inside Story three female officers from across Britain's forces have lifted the lid on life for women inside the police.
Serving West Mercia officer Faye reveals her personal story of how a senior officer allegedly sexually assaulted her and then was promoted, while another serving officer known as Emma, from a different force, says she was moved without warning after making a complaint.
A former Metropolitan police officer known in the programme as Rachel says on the day a damning report into Charing Cross police station came out, staff were told to delete any Facebook and WhatsApp messages that could be reported for being potentially criminal in attitude. She says;
“As a result of (the report) everyone in the Met had to watch this presentation, your attendance was noted in that meeting, a superintendent took it and said this has just come out about Charing Cross, so can everyone go and have a look at their Facebook and their WhatsApps and just delete, delete everything that you think could be reported. And I started looking around the room, I thought she was joking because I thought surely no one has those messages because they shouldn't, you know, exist."
Julie asks her:"So just to be absolutely clear. So this was a senior police officer, telling serving officers to go and delete whatever they got on their phones?"
Rachel: "Yeah…..I was shocked that was the message.”
After hearing some of the evidence presented in the programme, Baroness Louise Casey, the peer leading a review into standards and culture in the Met Police said she is not sure how much worse a crisis UK policing could face. She says, 'I don't know how much worse it could be'.
Rachel also says:
She knows of a male officer working for the Serious Sexual Offences Unit at the same time as her, who had the nickname 'The Rapist'.
A police sergeant decided to re-explain the facts of a violent rape case to her, but put the victim and suspect into his and her roles. When she reported it to his line manager she was told he was nearing retirement and didn't know that was inappropriate.
She also talks about her time working on the Serious Sexual Offences Unit where male officers celebrated when a rape complaint wasn't pursued by a woman. And that during the petrol shortage in 2021, a colleague joked that Wayne Couzens wouldn't have been able to buy fuel to burn Sarah Everard’s body.
Baroness Casey says those people should not be in those jobs: "Well, they shouldn't be in those jobs, we cannot have men like that in serving police forces, we've worked so hard to persuade younger women not to put up with violence, the abuse, the day to day misogyny, and to call out for what it is."
Faye, who is still a serving officer at West Mercia Police, says she was groped and harrassed at a party by a senior colleague. When she found the courage to complain he received only a warning for his behaviour, which she felt amounted to a sexual assault, because the officer was good at his job. She says: "Who should know better than him if he's so good at his job, what behaviour is acceptable and what isn't? It just felt like don't worry about sexually assaulting or sexually harassing your colleagues because you are really good at your job. You're far too valuable to the police service to get rid of you, you can do what you like."
Jayne Butler, CEO Rape Crisis, England and Wales says:
We know that there are people in the police who are really trying to do the right thing and then at the other end of the spectrum, we've got, you know, regular reports where we're hearing about police officers themselves committing sexual offences against women. And as we often see, those who do engage in the harmful behaviours seem to be the ones that stay in their jobs. We're told that the police can protect us. And all of this suggests that maybe they can't.
Another serving officer who the programme calls Emma, says she was targeted after making a complaint about an officer who rubbed himself up against one of her junior colleagues, and was moved from her job.
She says: "They just came down on me like a ton of bricks, you watch the ranks close because that's exactly what they do. You've got similar ranking officers investigating their mates, how on earth can you even think that that would be fair?"
Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women’s Justice says:
“It appears to be too easy for officers to exploit the privileges and powers they're given as police officers. And we see this again and again and again. If officers who are complained of are staying in their jobs and even getting promoted, as we have seen, and those that complain are being victimised, sometimes forced out, sometimes even subject to misconduct investigations themselves, then that is absolutely the opposite of justice, it's a grave violation of the basic principles of justice.”
The Met have announced that two to three officers will be going to court every week until 2025 for criminal cases including sexual offences and violence against women and girls, and with more women leaving the police service than ever before, the former and serving officers in the programme hope that by speaking out things will change for the better for the next generation of female police officers.
Produced by MultiStory Media, the programme is part of the multiple BAFTA-winning Exposure current affairs strand.
If you have been affected by any issues in the programme:
-Get help and support after rape, sexual assault, sexual abuse or any form of sexual violence at www.rapecrisis.org.uk
www.victimsupport.org.uk https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/help-after-rape-and-sexual-assault/https://malesurvivor.co.uk/
-Women both inside and outside the police can anonymously share their experiences of mistreatment by police officers here: www.policemetoo.co.uk