A former officer for the Metropolitan police has lodged two claims with an employment tribunal against the force, citing a hostile and “racist” work environment that forced her to resign.
The Pakistani Muslim woman, who has requested not to be named, claims she was forced to resign from her role as a superintendent in January 2020. At that time, she was the most senior female BAME and Muslim officer in the Metropolitan police.
In the two tribunal claims seen by the Guardian, she describes the force as a toxic workplace in which BAME staff of all ranks are subjected to unfavourable discriminatory treatment, including being blocked from promotion, undermined, not supported, harassed and bullied. She alleges white peers were routinely favoured for promotions, and offered career support, over BAME colleagues. Her claim seeks compensation for injury to feelings and injury to health, loss of earnings and pension losses.
The former employee was also one of those who reported a drawing of a swastika at a police station to senior staff in 2019. In her complaint, she claims that after she and others raised concerns over the swastika, senior staff at the Met tried to silence them and failed to investigate the drawing. No action was taken over the Nazi symbol. In March this year, a 21-year-old Met police officer from the Edmonton department was arrested on suspicion of being a member of a banned group linked to rightwing terrorism.
A spokesperson for the Met said it would not discuss the details of an ongoing claim, but that the force championed fairness and equality, and was no place for discrimination or victimisation of any kind. They added the force encouraged its officers and staff to challenge any display of such behaviour and report it through the appropriate channels.
The former employee, who had been working for the police since the 1980s and who commenced her senior management role at Haringey and Enfield in May 2018, first put forward a legal claim in August 2019. She claims that despite her strong performance in the unit and receiving numerous commendations, she reached a wall of “hostility” every time she sought promotion, faced prejudice from senior white managers, and a “glass ceiling made by white male and white female officers”.
In her claim, she alleges: “If it were not for the institutional racism at the force, I would have achieved more senior rank.”
She further claims that pressure was put on her by a senior white officer to mediate rather than file a complaint. She agreed that mediation could be helpful, but she says in her claim she believes it is also a way to protect white officers, and alleges “the mediation insists that acts of racism are nothing more than poor management judgment and learning lessons”. She alleges the senior white officer then confused her complaint with that of another BAME Muslim officer who had spoken to senior staff about racism.
During the process of filing the complaint, the former employee claims she was harassed and undermined. She tried to resign in late 2019, but was persuaded to stay with the promise of career development. But after further months of feeling she had little chance of her career being supported, she claims she was eventually forced to resign – constructively dismissed – due to the hostile working environment in January 2020.
After handing in her second resignation, she accuses a senior white female officer – who she says blocked her career progression – of leaking her name to a newspaper in an article about BAME officers who are in legal wrangles or misconduct in the Met.
A Met spokesperson said it had made a number of major procedural changes to the way complaints about discrimination and victimisation in the workplace were investigated, making its processes more effective and fit for purpose.
Lawrence Davies, the lawyer representing the former officer, said: “Her case is emblematic of racist work environments. In the context of the George Floyd tragedy, it is essential we move away from the Metropolitan police’s present institutional denial of racism and towards the acceptance of inequality and then to tackle the issue head-on. Racist officers must be dismissed, not promoted.”
