Sexual Misconduct: All UK Police To Be Review n Assessed

The call for review comes after a fall in public trust over the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens while he was a serving Metropolitan police officer, and fears that forces were not doing enough to identify and stop offenders in their ranks.

Due to the latest development, Police chiefs have been told to review all allegations of sexual misconduct, indecent exposure and domestic abuse involving their officers over the last two years.

The reviews – agreed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), which represents the leadership of local forces, at a crisis meeting last Friday – will cover hundreds of officers in the UK.

The aim is to ensure allegations have been investigated thoroughly enough, amid claims police cover up offending by their colleagues.

Police chiefs have also been asked to check that those facing allegations have been vetted properly and will be asked to pick claims against officers from the last decade at random to check they were properly handled.

Martin Hewitt, chair of the NPCC, claimed that forces were doing “everything that we can do to ensure that the way we deal with violence against women and girls is as effective and as assertive as it can be”.

Amid claims this has not been the case, Hewitt added: “We’ve commissioned a review of all of the incidents that relate to violence against women and girls, and issues around indecent exposure … any of those incidents by serving police officers and staff.”

Some in government were left unimpressed by the Met’s response to the Everard case, which notoriously included a suggestion that those worried a plainclothes officer stopping them was a threat could flag down a bus.

The Met has announced its own review, with an independent chair – former Whitehall trouble-shooter Louise Casey.

The NPCC cannot order the forces across the UK to do anything but expects that police chiefs will comply. Chiefs fear that deficiencies could be unearthed.

Hewitt added: “But be under no illusion, these are immediate actions that we determined last week needed to be taken. This is not something that people are going to be sitting on and waiting.