Metropolitan Police Chief says Violence Against Women and Girls should be treated "as a national security threat"
London's Victims Commissioner has said that women "lack trust and confidence" in the police
The head of the Metropolitan Police has said violence against women and girls should be treated as a threat to national security.
Sir Mark Rowley said the problem should be treated "like we treat terrorism"
"The aim nationally should be to treat it as a national security threat like we treat organised crime, like we treat terrorism," he said.
Sir Mark faced questioning by the London Policing Board in the wake of the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry published last week, which found that killer officer Wayne Couzens was a serial sexual predator who should never have been employed by the police service.
"I see police reform as a critical part of my mayoralty, and we must not be satisfied until Londoners have the police service they deserve."
Couzens was able to work for three different forces despite a 20-year history of sexual depravity and spiralling debts, which should have stopped him being a police officer.
Instead he abused his powers to kidnap and then rape and murder marketing executive Sarah Everard as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham, south London, in March 2021.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan began the meeting by expressing his "deepest sympathies" to her loved ones, and labelling Lady Elish Angiolini's report "one of the most shattering accounts of failure in British policing history".
"Knowing that a police officer harboured the capacity for such sadistic violence still haunts our city," he said.
"It's a perpetual reminder of why we're here and the importance of this board.
"Our task is one of the most urgent facing London today: to ensure we drive through the wide-ranging cultural and performance reforms needed within the Met, to ensure that we support and challenge the Commissioner in his mission - so that we can renew trust and confidence in policing in our capital.
"Whilst the Met is now on the path to fundamental reform, we're clearly not there yet.
"I see police reform as a critical part of my mayoralty, and we must not be satisfied until Londoners have the police service they deserve."
Victims Commissioner - Women "lack trust and confidence" in policing
After the meeting, Greatest Hits Radio spoke to the capital's Victims Commissioner Claire Waxman, who said that women lack faith in the police, but it's something that they're working to change.
"Understandably, women lack trust and confidence - there's a big fear of coming forward to report to the police. We're really trying to work on that to restore that trust and confidence but that;s going to take some years I think.
"We've done a huge amount of work with the Met over the last few years to improve their response to rape and we're really seeing great progress in this area. They've still got a long way to go but we are definitely seeing green shoots ."
We then asked how the Victims Commissioner what improvement within police vetting, recruitment and response to indecent exposure would look like. These were three key issues raised in the first report of the Angiolini Inquiry.
"What I would be looking for is ensuring that when a victim comes forward, they're able to stay in the process. What we see is very high victim withdrawal rates, so victims, women, coming out of the process once they've reported domestic abuse or reported rape.
"What I want to see is ensuring that they're able to stay in that process, they've got the right information, the right response and support to help them see it all the way through to get them into court and to bring an offender to justice."
Deputy Mayor For Policing and Crime - Rowley "leading transformational change" for the Metropolitan Police
After the London Policing Board, the Deputy Mayor For Policing and Crime Sophie Linden threw her support behind Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley.
Sophie Linden told us that Sir Mark Rowley has "already made substantial progress."
"Mark Rowley has absolutely gripped and is leading transformational chaneg for the Metropolitan Police. He has put in place a new plan which really is about transforming neighbourhood policing, moving officers into neighbourhoods, into the front line. Improving the response to violence against women and girls.
"He has already made substantial progress by increasing the number of officers that are being suspended., doubling the number of officers who are leaving the force because they're not fit to wear the uniform.
"But also we've seen a tripling of misconduct cases as well."
We asked both Claire Waxman and Sophie Linden about our survey, which found that nearly half of women in London trust the Metropolitan Police less compared to a year ago. Claire Waxman said "Unfortunately, that's not shocking to me at all." with Sophie Linden saying that the "disappointing thing about that is I'm not surprised."
You can find out more about the survey by clicking here.