Two or three Met officers to face court week, says commissioner

• Two to three Met Police officers per week expected to testify in court on criminal charges.
• Sir Mark Rowley says public should ‘prepare for more painful stories’.
• Met corruption hotline receiving tens of calls each week, a third related to other forces.

Two to three Met Police officers per week are anticipated to testify in court on criminal charges in the upcoming weeks and months, according to the force’s chief.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley says the public should “prepare for more painful stories” as the force confronts the issues it faces.

He said cases included “violence against women and girls offences”, such as domestic abuse and sex offences.

“There’s a trickle of them and more are going to be surfacing,” he added.

Sir Mark was addressing the Greater London Authority’s Police and Crime Committee in the wake of PC David Carrick’s admission on January 16 of several rapes and other sexual offences against 12 women.

The PC Hussain Chehab case, in which he admitted guilt to child sex offences on Tuesday, was also brought up by the Met head.

The Met is currently under some kind of special measures as a result of several scandals and negative reviews.

As the Met eliminated hundreds of corrupt policemen who were allegedly still on the job, Sir Mark pleaded with the public not to lose hope.

He told the committee: “We haven’t applied the same sense of ruthlessness to guarding our own integrity that we routinely apply to confronting criminals – and I’m deeply sorry for that.”

He also said: “Lifting the stone and revealing painful truths will not be resolved overnight, and I mustn’t pretend it will do, and I hope you understand that that can’t be done.

“We have to prepare for more painful stories as we confront the issues that we face.”

A new Met corruption hotline had been receiving tens of calls each week, a third of which were related to other forces and had been sent, he also stated during the conference.

But he emphasized that the Met’s bigger reforms “won’t be swift” in their progress.

Sir Mark said they were looking at units for “warning indicators” in response to questioning from the committee about whether specific Met teams have more abusive or dishonest officers.

“This is pockets, but it’s too many pockets that exist because systematically we haven’t been good enough,” he added.

He emphasized the problem was bigger than “a few bad apples”, adding the Met’s anti-corruption and abuse command was being encouraged to be “proactive in using more covert techniques”.

This included monitoring internal communications “more intrusively where there’s good cause”, Sir Mark said.

Currently, the force is looking into prior accusations of violence against women and girls levelled against 1,071 Met Police officers and other employees during the last ten years.

Some of those officers and employees, according to Sir Mark, were the subject of “many cases.”

By the end of March, the evaluation is anticipated to be finished.

Additionally, Sir Mark earlier declared that all 45,000 Met officers and employees would be rechecked for previously missed offences.

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