Criminal cases against police officers could make the coming months “incredibly uncomfortable”, Southwark’s outgoing borough commander has admitted.
The departing chief superintendent Colin Wingrove was referring to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley’s recent revelation that two or three officers are to face court every week over the coming months.
But Wingrove also said those prosecutions were “really necessary… to protect our integrity” and that he was “appalled” by the case of David Carrick – the officer given 36 life sentences for a 17-year campaign of violent sexual exploitation.
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Wingrove was taking councillors’ questions at Southwark Council’s Housing and Community Safety Scrutiny Commission, on February 15.
It was his final appearance before the council following his promotion and replacement by the new commander Seb Adjei Addoh, who started work on Monday after his move from North Area.
Wingrove has risen to the rank of Commander at Scotland Yard taking the lead on ‘professionalism’ in the Met, in a department monitoring police standards, helping to shape policy and increase transparency.
The meeting came following a litany of high-profile cases of sexual violence by police – most notably the murder of Sarah Everard and the David Carrick case.
Pre-empting future criminal allegations against police officers, he said “it will be incredibly uncomfortable and so on but it’s really necessary… to protect our integrity… that we do root out those individuals and we fix those structures and processes”.
But Wingrove indicated he did not believe there was a cultural reluctance to change within the Met.
Labour Councillor Sam Foster asked whether Wingrove had found there was “cultural resistance” to reform, to which he replied: “The vast majority of officers that we have policing Southwark are good, hardworking officers that have got integrity, are professional, got compassion.”
He added that there were “a small number of officers that we have identified who have either committed criminal acts or they’ve done things that fall below the standards we expect”.
He concluded: “But they are a minority of officers… some of this is around human behaviours. It’s around what people say, it’s how they act, it’s what they do, it’s the choices that people make. And it’s the boundaries that people don’t adhere to… the professional boundaries that exist.”
He took the meeting’s opportunity to reflect on the work done in Southwark to tackle violence against women.
He said that the sanction detection rate for domestic abuse – the proportion of cases that result in a charge – had risen from 7 to 15 per cent in the last year. He said this was “the best performance in London”.
Wingrove also said 65 per cent of victims of crime in Southwark reported receiving a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ service.
He said the fourteen additional police constables allocated to the borough’s high crime wards last year was “really good news for residents”.
Remarking on his departure after serving in his role for three years, he said: “I am indeed sad to go. It has been three years and it’s an amazing borough to serve and so it’s been a real honour and a privilege to do so.”
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