- Sir Mark Rowley says 3,000 Metropolitan Police officers cannot be fully deployed.
- Due to charges of wrongdoing or medical conditions, 500 are suspended or performing limited duties.
- Sir Mark told the media he lacked the power to sack them, which he described as “perverse”.
Due to charges of wrongdoing or medical conditions, 3,000 Metropolitan Police officers—including “approximately 100” who are not trusted to speak to the public, according to commissioner Sir Mark Rowley—cannot be fully deployed.
Of the 3,000 police, he said that 500 were suspended or performing limited responsibilities.
Sir Mark told the media he lacked the power to sack them, which he described as “perverse”.
He has been calling for more a change in the rules on sacking officers.
“I have about 100 officers in the organization who have very restrictive conditions on them because, frankly, we don’t trust them to talk to members of the public and it’s completely mad that I have to employ people like that as police officers who you can’t trust to have contact with the public, it’s ridiculous.”
“We’re looking at whether we’ve got any new legal levers but on the conventional approaches, we can’t, it’s perverse, isn’t it?,” Sir Mark said.
Sir Mark also acknowledged rumours that he hired 3,000 officers but is unable to use them all. He said that many had “real” health problems.
But he continued: “There are over 500 people under suspension or restriction as a result of misbehaviour investigations, and there are too many people with restrictions that we need to get tougher on because that’s more than 10% of my staff that I can’t fully deploy.”
After a string of scandals involving some of the force’s officers, Sir Mark, who succeeded Dame Cressida Dick as head of the Met in September, has vowed to restore public confidence in the organization.
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