Six former London police officers were sentenced to between six and fourteen weeks in prison on Thursday for exchanging racist messages on WhatsApp while on duty. Michael Chadwell, Peter Booth, Anthony Elsom, Trevor Lewton, Alan Hall and Robert Lewis, all in their 60s, were accused of improper use of an electronic communications network for the exchange of these messages between September 2020 and 2022, which had been revealed by a BBC journalistic investigation.
London police shaken by various scandals
Some of these messages, racist, homophobic and sexist, referred to Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry, the late Queen Elizabeth II and her husband Prince Philip, as well as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The officers, who retired between 2001 and 2015, held various positions during their careers, but all belonged for a time to the service responsible for the protection of consulates and embassies located in the British capital.
“The racist and discriminatory content of these messages is absolutely terrible and, given that the accused belonged to the police, we are aware that this case can further undermine the confidence (of the population) in the police,” he said. reacted the head of the department responsible for the fight against corruption and abusive actions within the police, James Harman. “I also hope that this case demonstrates our commitment to taking any accusation very seriously” against police officers, he added.
London’s police force has been rocked by various scandals in recent years, including the murder of a 33-year-old woman, Sarah Everard, in 2021 by police officer Wayne Couzens, who was sentenced to life in prison. This affair led to the resignation of the police chief, Cressida Dick, at the start of 2022. Another police officer, David Carrick, was also sentenced at the start of the year to life in prison for 24 rapes and multiple sexual assaults against twelve women between 2003 and 2020.
Several reports have denounced the presence of institutional racism, sexism and homophobia within law enforcement. Steps have been taken to re-examine old cases involving police officers or to toughen conditions for recruiting police officers.