Andrew Dismore

 

During the London Assembly plenary with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe on 5^th March, Andrew Dismore, Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden accused the Commissioner of complacency over race discrimination in the Met.

Mr Dismore has been demanding answers about race discrimination cases against the police for over a year and has still not been able to get to the bottom of what has been going on due to delays and obfuscation by the Met and MOPAC.

Mr Dismore asked the Commissioner:

“Why did it take from when I first asked the question in February 2013, a year ago, to November 2013 and no fewer than 5 more reminder Mayor’s questions, to answer the simple question of how many race claims had been made against the police over the previous 3 years and how much compensation   was paid out of taxpayers money to the victims?”

Mr Dismore said:

“The answer when eventually received  was  34 claims from officers and staff and  33 from the public, a total  67 claims, with £196,000 compensation paid  to  officers and staff,  and £470,000 to  members of the public, an overall  total of £666,000.”

Mr Dismore then put to the Commissioner:

“When I finally got these answers, I wrote to you to ask how many of those cases had resulted in disciplinary action. I’m now told it will take till mid-April this year to give me the answer: yet another 6 months. It’s like pulling eye teeth.

Surely if you   really were on top of this you would know how many of your officers had been subjected to disciplinary action for racism, wouldn’t you? Can you assure me that at least one of these 67 cases has resulted in disciplinary action?”

Sir Bernard was unable to give any indication of how many or if any disciplinary action had been taken and offered to look into the matter.

After the debate, Mr Dismore added:

“Perhaps it is not surprising that so many people think the Met is still institutionally racist, when senior management don’t have a grasp of basic statistics like these, or worse gives the impression that there is something to hide?”