The UK Independent Office for Police Conduct announced that eight Metropolitan police officers, five of whom are still active and three former, are under investigation for gross misconduct. This is the latest stage in the investigation into the police’s approach towards a series of murders by Stephen Port, committed against LGBTQIA+ individuals between 2014 and 2015.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) voluntarily referred their concerns regarding their initial investigations to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct) in 2015. The initial investigation report, published in 2020, found areas of MPS practice that needed enhancement. Since then, new evidence has surfaced, leading to the reopening of the investigation in 2022, to further explore the potential biases and prejudices by individual officers.
Stephen Port, often referred to as the “Grindr killer”, had drugged, sexually assaulted and murdered Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth, and Jack Taylor. Despite similarities in the cases, the MPS failed to link these deaths until the last victim’s body was discovered. An April 2023 investigation by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services underscored this mishandling, referring to the MPS’s failure to notice the evident links between these deaths.
This new investigation will focus on the police officers for their alleged breaches of police standards on their perceptions towards equality and diversity and their professional duties and integrity. An unsparing report by Baroness Louise Casey, from March, added more fuel to the fire when it alleged that the MPS is institutionally racist and sexist.
In a response to the series of unfortunate events that went by, the organization made 20 recommendations to aid in improving the MPS’ grave mishandling of these cases.