Marr: 'The Casey report into the Met reads like a giant roar of rage about the state of Britain's biggest police force'
21 March 2023, 18:14 | Updated: 21 March 2023, 18:29
Baroness Casey's report into the Met police reads less like a "conventional review", and more like "a giant agonised roar of rage," Andrew Marr has said.
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Speaking on LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr after the damning report calling the Met institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic was published on Tuesday, the presenter lamented the series of scandals that have plagued the force in recent years.
Andrew said: "Again and again and again. After Wayne Couzens. Everything will change. After the Stephen Port serial-killing case. Lessons learned. Never again. After the murder of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry… everything will change.
"Twenty-four years ago, after Stephen Lawrence and the Macpherson report…. Everything will change. But on it goes. On and on. More police contempt and hostility towards women. More trouble for Londoners not born white. More homophobia in the ranks. More bullying. On and on and on. Again and again and again.
Andrew Marr: The Casey report reads like a giant roar of rage about the state of the Met police
Andrew added: "Today’s Baroness Casey review into the standards and culture of the Metropolitan Police begins with the words of Sarah Everard’s mother Susan Everard, and I think that's a good place for us to start tonight as well.
"Susan told the court after her daughter was abducted, raped and murdered by police officer: 'There is no comfort to be had, there is no consoling thought in the way Sarah died. In her last hours she was faced with brutality and terror, alone with someone intent on doing her harm. The thought of it is unbearable. I am haunted by the horror of it.. I am repulsed… I am outraged.'
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"And here is Louise Casey herself, drilling down to what many of us would see as the heart of the problem. 'Yes, lots of good police, she says; 'but the job can also attract predators and bullies – those who want power over their fellow citizens and to use those powers to cause harm and to discriminate.'
"There are pages and pages of detailed recommendations for change, up to and including the suggestion that if it doesn't radically alter its culture, the Met should be broken up into smaller local and national forces - one recommendation that neither a highly embarrassed Met, nor senior politicians seem ready to accept.
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"With its numbered paragraphs and graphs and its charts and its careful quotations from previous reports, this nevertheless reads less like a conventional establishment review and more like a giant agonised roar of rage about what's been going on in Britain's biggest police force.
"There's so much really unpleasant stuff I could quote but let me just leave you with this, a direct quotation from a police officer in the report, page 140: 'if you look at our performance around rape, serious sexual offences, the detection rate is so low you might as well say it’s legal in London.'"
