Third of Londoners believe the Met is 'untrustworthy', new survey shows

Only 60 per cent of Londoners trust police, the survey found
Metropolitan Police Service
Justin Davenport7 August 2015

Londoners have significantly less trust in police officers in the capital than in nurses, teachers and people working in other essential services, a new survey shows.

Just 60 per cent of Londoners trust the police compared to 84 per cent doctors, 83 per cent nurses and 79 per cent teachers.

Worringly for the Met, a third of the capital's residents said they believed the police were untrustworthy, according to the poll of 1,000 Londoners. That figure rose to over half - 56 per cent - in the case of black Londoners, who were also more likely to think that the police force is institutionally racist than white residents (54 per cent to 34 per cent).

The survey found that more than half of Londoners agreed with a statement that police always protect themselves over all others.

However, it also found that nearly 70 per cent also agreed that police "get a lot of criticism for doing a difficult job."

The survey, carried out by Opinion Research, found that people believed doctors to be the most trustworthy profession, followed by nurses, teachers, the armed forces and judges.

Tabloid journalists were seen as the least trustworthy - only 16 per cent of people believed them - while just 20 per cent said they trusted politicians.

The poll comes after the Met has faced a series of controversies such as the so-called Plebgate affair, the role of undercover officers, the fatal shooting of gang member Mark Duggan and the Stephen Lawrence case.

Senior officers have admitted they are struggling to raise people's confidence in police and the Met's own surveys show public confidence has been “flat-lining” at around 68 per cent in recent years.

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The force claims it is trying to be more open by introducing body-worn video cameras for all front-line officers and the decision to allow the BBC to make the recent fly-on-the-wall documentary called The Met.

Green peer Jenny Jones, the Lib Dem policing spokeswoman on the London Assembly, said: “The Met Police clearly have a big hill to climb if they are to win back trust amongst Londoners.

“The historic child abuse scandals shows the need for police whistle blowers to be supported, yet the Met can’t produce a single whistleblower who was happy at how the Met treated them.”

She said the Met should end the “closed ranks culture” of the police service and learn to say sorry.

The Met issued a statement saying that its own survey of 12,800 Londoners showed 67 per cent of people thought it was doing a good job.

It said: “The Met wants all Londoners to have trust and confidence in our service and is striving to achieve this including initiatives such as the London residency requirement for police officer recruits, the Community Ambassadors Scheme, public Ward Panel meetings in every ward, Stop Search Monitoring Groups and Independent Custody Visitors.”

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