Hundreds of people have filed serious allegations of discrimination and misconduct against the Metropolitan police in Croydon over the last year.
It has been revealed the borough has received the second highest number of cases in London, just after Westminster.
Jabeer Butt, Deputy Chief Executive of Race Equality Foundation said to EastLondonlines: “The evidence is that the police service in London continues to be impacted by racism. The failure to deliver change in the use of ‘stop and search’ powers means black young men are still significantly more likely to be stopped.”
As a result of these complaints, 247 officers have had allegations made against them, mainly because of unauthorised searches, inappropriate behaviour, not informing suspects of their rights correctly and oppressive actions, as well as other breaches of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act’s code of conduct.
31 per cent of officers in Croydon were claimed to have not adhered to their duties in the correct manner. This means for every 100 police officers, 31 had accusations of misconduct; proportionally this was the highest in the capital.
Croydon police force now face 471 complaints from the public, these vary from rudeness and discrimination to perjury and assault (Croydon Advertiser).
From February 2014 to March 2015 a total of 245 complaints were made on just the grounds of racism against the Metropolitan police, of which only five resulted in further investigation (Guardian).
Butt also said: “Our view is that the Metropolitan police have made significant progress since the MacPherson report on their investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence described it as ‘institutionally racist’.
“Black and minority ethnic Londoners want and deserve a police service that protects all and treats everyone with respect. It is to be hoped that the new Commissioner will deliver progress in achieving this”.
Most complaints against the police result in no further action; in every London borough over half are concluded to have no case. This is also true of Croydon with 68 per cent of these claims finding no misconduct had occurred.
All statistics obtained through FOI request from the Metropolitan Police.