Belgravia 'just an isolated incident' of racism in Met

A SENIOR Metropolitan Police official has admitted the force will struggle to eradicate "isolated incidents" of racism but insisted it was no longer institutionally racist.

He also commented on claims of an "apartheid" culture among PCSOs at Belgravia police station with ethnic minority officers travelling in separate vans.

Human resources director Martin Tiplady said the force's rapid response to the claims showed it would not tolerate such behaviour. Speaking to Human Resources magazine, he said: "I am offended by the fact we have got this bad incident but I'm reassured that it happened more than two years ago and that the manager dealt with it and one or two people have had their futures curbed as a result.

"It's daft of me to say that individual cases of racism or sexism are not going to happen in an organisation of 55,000 people. But an organisation that deals with such incidents swiftly and robustly is an organisation that is not institutionally racist."

He admitted that the Met had "got something wrong" with regard to PCSOs who are subject to employment law, unlike rank and file police, who are employed under separate regulations. While there are only 4,500 PCSOs compared with 14,500 Met staff, more than half of all serious discipline cases involve PCSOs.

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