A report by the His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services revealed that London’s Metropolitan Police Service, also known as The Met, has not learned enough from the failures in the Stephen Port case. Port was a serial killer who was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering four men he met on dating websites between 2014 and 2015. The report states that The Met had failed to recognize the connection between the deaths until it was too late, despite obvious similarities.
The report further adds that The Met’s training and supervision processes were inadequate, crime analysis processes were poor, and record-keeping was unacceptable. The review has called for an overhaul of these processes and has recommended increasing the use of intelligence officers responding to deaths.
This report comes after an independent review last month found that The Met was institutionally racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. The force was put into a special monitoring and improvement program by the police watchdog last year over its handling of a string of high-profile cases.
The report by the His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services has highlighted that The Met’s problems with competence and professionalism run deep, and they don’t get the basics right too often. The Inspector of the Constabulary, Matt Parr, has said that “history could repeat itself” if the force fails to take action on the recommendations.
The Stephen Port case also had implications for the LGBT community, as his victims were all gay men. The failure of the police to recognize the connection between the deaths until too late has raised questions about whether enough is being done to protect vulnerable members of the LGBT community.
The Met has acknowledged that it still relies on luck to identify links between deaths at a local level. Assistant Commissioner Louisa Rolfe has said that the force is sincere in its desire to make real change and minimize the chance of a case like this ever happening again.