Logan blasts Met chief Rowley over institutional racism

BRITAIN’S MOST well-known ex-cop blasted Sir Mark Rowley after the Metropolitan Police Commissioner refused to accept a report s findings that his force was institutionally racist. Retired police chief superintendent and former Black Police Association chair Leroy Logan said that the Met boss, pictured right, was engaging in “semantics” which meant that change was less likely.

Speaking outside Scotland Yard on the day the review by Dame Louise Casey was released, Mr Logan fumed: “I’m so angry. [Sir Mark] doesn’t acknowledge that the narrative has to change from the top, because if he’s defensive, the rest of the Met will be defensive.

“And that’s the thing.

The rest of the country will be defensive. And so you’re not going to even have the attitudinal changes that’s necessary. You’re not going to see the accountability and transparency that’s critical.”

Sir Mark said he accepted his force had “institutional issues” but said the “label” of institutional racism was “politicised and ambiguous”.

In 1999, Sir William Macpherson made a clear definition of institutional racism in his public inquiry report into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. The

Casey review found the Met to be institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic. The report found that Black officers were more likely to be discriminated against and were 81 per cent more likely to be investigated for misconduct.

It concluded that “Black Londoners in particular remain over-policed. They are more likely to be stopped and searched, handcuffed, batoned and Tasered, are over-represented in many serious crimes, and when they are victims of crime, they are less satisfied with the service they receive than other Londoners.

“There is now generational mistrust of the police among Black Londoners. Stop and search is currently deployed by the Met at the cost of legitimacy, trust and, therefore, consent.”