A Met Police officer has left the force in disgrace after sending a racist message that was accidently played out loud during a meeting about diversity. Former PC Thomas Murray, part of the Met’s troubled Parliamentary and Diplomatic Command, used numerous expletives as he accused Black officers of ‘playing the race card’.
Murray sent the vile rant to a colleague during a Microsoft Teams seminar offering advice and support for under-represented groups thinking of applying for a promotion, at around 11:30am on September 8, 2022. With the recipient’s mic accidently unmuted, the private voice note was broadcast to all 21 people on the call.
Almost everyone on the call attested to the words ‘f***’ and ‘f******’ being used, and the word ‘Black’ along with ‘racist comments’. A total of 10 officers said they heard the word ‘c****’, six said they heard the words ‘race card’, and another four reported hearing the word ‘S******’. The Met would not reveal the exact racist terms Murray used.
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Four officers also gave more detailed recollections, which included words to the effect of ‘I didn’t get an invite to the meeting because I don’t tick the box, I am a white male’, ‘f****** Black people’, ‘qualifying as a Black officer’, and ‘Black. I am only here because I want to be a f****** governor’. One witness said she was most disturbed by FPC Murray’s ‘barely concealed, simmering anger’.
Murray, who did not engage with the misconduct process, initially told his sergeant he would co-operate fully. He gave evidence that he had been at home doing DIY, with his hands covered in glue, when he responded to his colleague with a voice message that was not meant for anyone else. He accepted some of the words used by him, but denied his comments were racist or had racist intent.
Murray also said some of the words reported by the witnesses had been misheard or misconstrued. He apologised for his language ‘inadvertently’ causing distress for those who heard it, and said they may have ‘simply misunderstood that I was responding to’.
Murray’s argument was that he was incredulous that officers in the meeting had implied the Met Police was racist, and that the voice note was a reaction to this, rather than being racist and discriminatory himself. This was rejected by the misconduct panel, which called the comments ‘highly offensive, derogatory, discriminatory and abusive’.
“FPC Murray’s voice message was delivered in a hostile manner. The language and tone used by him was impolite, inappropriate and offensive. The contents of the message were racially and otherwise discriminatory,” the panel concluded, deciding the former PC would have been sacked if he still worked for the Met. FPC Murray quit the force in October 2023 and is now banned from policing.
Commander Simon Messinger, in charge of PaDP, said: “There is no place in the Met for people who have these types of views and attitudes and I am pleased that the actions of this former officer have now been dealt with. We have been making significant changes to improve the culture with PaDP, including a new leadership team and strengthened supervision of officers.
“There can be no doubt around the high standards expected of officers and staff across the Met and we will continue to identify those who do not adhere to these values and work to dismiss them from the organisation.”
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