A London mayoral candidate has said the Metropolitan Police should deal with issues of misconduct “behind closed doors”. According to a leaked recording heard by the Times, Susan Hall, the Conservative candidate for London Mayor, also said misogyny and sexism in the London police force are the result of individual “bad ’uns” only.
In the recording, Hall said she would “support [the Metropolitan Police] completely in front of other people”. But then she added: “If they’re doing something wrong, you take them into your office, you close the door, and you have the conversation and that’s exactly what we should be doing with the police.”
Speaking about sexism in the Met, Hall suggests in the recording that problems are caused by “bad ’uns” and “wrong ’uns”. However, The Times points out that this is opposite to the findings of Baroness Casey of Blackstock’s review of the Met, which concluded that the force was institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.
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Hall’s comments had happened during a campaign event in January, the Times has reported. They came after she was criticised by a member of the audience who said she was not publicly recognising the need for police reform.
Hall said: “There have been some disgraceful episodes, you’re quite right. And they are now rooting out the bad ’uns, if you like. There’s 250 that are on suspension, not allowed to work and there’s about 1,000 that are being watched. Totally not good enough … Having said that, if you’re running a business, if you want things to go well with your staff, you support them completely in front of other people.
“If they’re doing something wrong, you take them into your office, you close the door, and you have the conversation and that’s exactly what we should be doing with the police.”
Hall said she would continue to support the majority of officers who were “battered and bruised” after suffering public criticism of the Met Police for years. The candidate said: “And some of the wrong ’uns are the ones that have gotten a bad reputation. So I will continue to support [the majority].”
The recording has been discovered in the same week as the anniversary of the death of Sarah Everard, who was murdered by serving police officer Wayne Couzens. It has recently been revealed that Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer, after police “repeatedly failed” to spot warning signs about his “unsuitability for office”, a report found.
Following the Angiolini inquiry, chairwoman Lady Elish Angiolini warned without a radical overhaul of policing practices and culture, there is “nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight”.
Hall’s campaign slogan is “Safer with Susan”. She’s called for knife arches to be installed in all schools to tackle knife crime in London, as well as promising to “get a grip on crime”.
A spokesman for Hall told MyLondon: “Sadiq Khan was condemned by an independent review for publicly berating and undermining the previous Met commissioner. Susan’s point was that she would not follow Sadiq Khan’s approach of sniping at the Met through the press to give himself publicity, because it only makes the problem worse. Susan knows that effective leadership means not only being frank about the problems, but also supporting the Met in overcoming them.”
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