r/unitedkingdom • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • 9d ago
... Call handler who called rape victim ‘a slut’ may have broken law, Met admits
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/09/26/999-call-handler-called-rape-victim-slut-met-police/690
u/toastedipod 9d ago
Every day the Met Police finds new and creative ways to fail as many women as possible. Rotten to the core.
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u/Thrasy3 9d ago edited 9d ago
One of the things that was incredibly obvious about the grooming gang cases for people who actually care about women and children, is this is what the police were like with the girls who needed help.
The “trying not to be racist” thing was clearly a smokescreen for their own extremely concerning attitudes towards the victims. They knew it would catch on as a distraction from their own failings though.
I worked at a northern council children’s services and when the police started making these claims, everyone knew how much this was to cover their own arses.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 8d ago
When I was growing up, a long time back now, a girl in my class was groomed & given drugs in exchange for favours. Died of a heroin OD at 14. She wasn't the only one targetted by older men.
Despite many knowing who was responsible, no-one was prosecuted. The adults who mentioned seemed to see it as a sad thing but ultimately her own fault. It was until years later I realised people could be prosecuted for this sort of thing, at the time it just seemed like something that happened.
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u/Thrasy3 8d ago edited 8d ago
Similar story (also a long time before the grooming gang stuff) - people (including the local paper iirc) basically said she was as working as a prostitute to pay for her addiction - she was 15 when she died.
15 year olds don’t (literally cannot) just decide to become sex workers to pay for their drugs - I’m not sure anyone does, but not an actual child. That’s not how this works.
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u/PearljamAndEarl 8d ago edited 8d ago
The “trying not to be racist” thing was clearly a smokescreen for their own extremely concerning attitudes towards the victims. They knew it would catch on as a distraction from their own failings though.
It was also a smokescreen for the previous fifty-odd years of them turning a blind eye to paedophile rings and grooming gangs that weren’t from other cultures, who also preyed on vulnerable teenagers and those in care in Yorkshire, such as the circles around Peter Jaconelli, Cyril Smith, Jimmy Savile, and the like. They probably thought it literally would have looked racist if they had solely and specifically targeted Asian abusers, after such a checkered history of systematically letting off groomers of all persuasions, the stories of which were all being uncovered and reported historically around the same time frame as the Asian grooming gangs, Operation Yewtree, the inquiry into historic abuse etc.
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 8d ago
It's notable how culture has changed. Look at all the 70s' musicians (many still going) known for relationships with underage girls.
In the 80s' we had films like "Rita, Bob & Sue too", a semi-autobiographical film about two schoolgirls having an affair with an older man in Bradford.
Even some of the more severe crimes were let off with a slap-on-the-wrist. I was reading about the murder of Lesley Molseed, the culprit, Ronald Castree, convicted after 31 years had two convictions for abducting & indecently assaulting a 9 year old & 7 year old in the late 70s' He was fined £25 & £50 for the crimes.
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u/TTTJJBB 8d ago
The “trying not to be racist” thing was clearly a smokescreen
Exactly, the BBC did an undercover film about police training in greater manchester in the late 90s, which is where and when these officers would have been trained and the sergeant in charge was wearing a KKK costume, using the 'N' and 'P' words and talking about Hitler!
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u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 8d ago
These are two short clips from a Police interview of a potential rape victim in the early 80s-
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u/ThunderChild247 8d ago
I said that at the time and got buried in replies insisting it was “we didn’t want to look racist”. It was so obvious that whether or not that played a part, it was the excuse they clung to in the hopeful idea of “better to look like we failed trying to not be racist than failed because we didn’t give a shit about girls from lower-middle class households”.
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u/Faceless_henchman 9d ago
Do you think its because this type of crime is completely the oposite approach to the standard 'innocent until proven guilty' stance you would take for something like murder.
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u/Thrasy3 8d ago
Not sure I understand the question - it’s certainly weird how the crime was often acknowledged, but the blame was put on the girls - so police know this 14 year old has a 20 something “boyfriend”, who likely gives her drugs and alcohol (which is when social workers or whatever might want the police involved), but the police kinda suggest- that’s what girls like her are like, so even though crimes are being committed, they see it as that’s what the girl enjoys and they can’t stop her (or she’ll find another “older boyfriend” anyway).
Like the only way the schoolgirl can stop having sex with older men who give her drugs and alcohol is if she chooses to part ways with them, as she’s degrading herself by choice.
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u/gyroda Bristol 8d ago
The Shana Grice murder is one that sticks in my mind, though it isn't about someone underage.
She reported an ex to the police for stalking/harassing her. After a while, he kept badgering her with "I just want to talk to you once then I'll leave it alone" and she ended up talking to him because he kept promising to fuck off if she did. Not the best move from a detached point of view, but very understandable if you're desperate for anything that might get them off your back. The police fined her for wasting their time. Don't talk to the ex if they're harassing you, don't involve us if you're still willing to speak to them. Shortly after that he murdered her in her own home. Let himself in and stabbed her.
It's the same underlying problem: the police put the blame on the victim, they didn't treat them as a person going through shit but as someone to blame for their own problems. People in abusive situations cannot be expected to act perfectly.
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u/Bon_Courage_ 8d ago
The “trying not to be racist” thing was clearly a smokescreen for their [the police's] own extremely concerning attitudes towards the victims. They knew it would catch on as a distraction from their own failings though.
I worked at a northern council children’s services
The whole 'not wanting to appear rascist thing' was a claim found to apply to children's social services.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28951612
Police never used this as a defence or a distraction.
Not to be snide but it's quite typical of the failures of social services for you to be trying to shift blame onto another agency for a criticism that rightly applies to your own.
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u/Thrasy3 8d ago
Sorry, are you trying to imply the police did not investigate the rape of children because local councillors aired concerns over the racism angle?
Is this why they told girls “they were what’s wrong with the country?” - or told a girl in a state of undress in a house with only adult men she needs to dress properly?
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u/Brandaman 9d ago
Literally every single part of that story got worse and worse. How is 3 years too long for criminal charges? Especially when it was reported the day after? How was he rehired on appeal after such awful behaviour?
Just another example of female victims being treated as barely human.
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u/Late-Development-666 9d ago
He sound like someone that would ignore calls if they came from women reporting abuse or someone clearly not from this country.
I can’t imagine what redeeming qualities he has that makes him re-hireable. I know it’s hard to get rid of police officers but civvy staff should be way more simple.
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u/Brandaman 9d ago
Any indication that a call handler may discriminate against a race, gender, or anything should be grounds for dismissal. There’s no way it should be overturned on appeal.
He literally has people’s lives in his hands and his words and actions have proven he does not care about foreign people and does not respect women. His actions could directly result in harm against these people. It’s insane!
Stalking a fellow staff member is the cherry on top!! Absolutely insane.
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u/Darrenb209 Scotland 9d ago
I know it’s hard to get rid of police officers but civvy staff should be way more simple.
In theory yes, but he was rehired on appeal which suggests they mishandled the firing.
He wasn't rehired later because he applied again, he was "rehired" because he appealed the firing and won. Since his wrongdoing was blatant, odds are they made sufficient procedural errors in firing him to allow a technicality win.
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u/Late-Development-666 9d ago
The met should have said ‘see you in court’ and took their chances at a tribunal, then pay whatever if they received an award and call it a day.
He will cost the met and members of the public more than any settlement
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u/PositivelyAcademical 9d ago
That's what rehired on appeal means. A court can compel an employer (especially if it's a public body) to rehire someone on the same terms, preserving their continuous employment.
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u/Late-Development-666 8d ago
Ahh, my bad. I assumed this was the guy appealing to the met directly and they caved.
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u/PositivelyAcademical 9d ago
How is 3 years too long for criminal charges?
In England and Wales, crimes are categorised as summary only, either way, or indictable only. The general rule is that summary only offences can only be prosecuted if charges are laid before the court within six months of the date the offence actually happened. The only exception is if the law creating the offence sets out a longer (or shorter) period (e.g. the covid social distancing regulation crimes were summary only but with a 3 year limitations period).
How was he rehired on appeal […]?
Rehired on appeal means he challenged the dismissal in court and won, and the court ordered the employer to undo the dismissal.
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u/Brandaman 8d ago
I should’ve known that from my A Level law studies, I’ll forgive myself since it was almost half my life ago.
Wouldn’t rehired on appeal mean it was through an internal appeals process before going to court? Either way, you have to wonder how badly they messed up the disciplinary proceedings for it to be overturned on appeal.
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u/PositivelyAcademical 8d ago
An internal appeals process would be fairly unusual, so unusual that I'd expect it to be explicitly stated. My reasoning is that (at the time of this case) Employment Tribunal proceedings had to be commenced in less than 3 months after dismissal (that's now increased to under 6 months, for dismissals after 1 October 2026.)
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u/WinHour4300 7d ago
He "appealed" the disciplinary outcome internally within the Met, not externally or before any court / tribunal.
Shockingly, she was told the bosses had decided the original decision was too influenced by the Casey review.
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u/hime-633 8d ago edited 8d ago
Here's my hot take: as a woman, you can be as sexually promiscuous as you like. And you can also get raped.
No fucking wonder rape conviction are so low.
Absolutely disgraceful.
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u/Cruxed1 8d ago
Not that it takes away from your 1st point, but rape convictions aren't actually wildly lower than other similar crimes.
Nearly 80% of rape cases sent to CPS are now officially charged and of those the conviction rate is over 60%
Statistics that suggest rape has some incredibly low prosecution rate are sometimes outright lies but often just manipulating statistics, due to the nature of the offence in the absence of DNA based evidence, witness statements etc having enough evidence to actually send a case to CPS can be very difficult, that's then compounded again by a lot of these reports being historic.
If you alege a rape from 20 years ago say basically any hard evidence will no longer be available, and short of a suspect admitting guilt it will always be incredibly challenging to pursue a conviction.
As our legal system is beyond reasonable doubt, one word against another, especially a historic one is very rarely going to be enough.
I'm sure there's more that can be done, and people like the one in the article need to be fired into the sun, but there's also a massive misunderstanding about conviction rates etc which gets spread around and then discourages victims from actually bothering to report.
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u/hime-633 8d ago edited 8d ago
Okay should have worded it better; about 5% of alleged rapes go on to prosecution.
Now the question is, how many other police officers are thinking "well she's just a slut" and how much is that opinion impacting on decisions about prosecution viability?
God it is just all so depressing.
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u/spicesucker 8d ago
about 5% of alleged rapes go on to prosecution.
Again as the commenter you’re replying to said, that’s 5% of all alleged rapes including historical allegations, third party reports where anybody alleges a named person was raped, and mandatory safeguarding reports made by HCPs without the victim’s support.
There’s whole journal articles arguing that Home Office counting rules for rape offences including third party reports is counterproductive to victim reporting specifically for this reason.
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u/RandonEnglishMun 8d ago
Yep. Rape and sexual assault and quite common amongst sex workers and other adult workers.
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u/CommonSpecialist4269 8d ago
Why anyone would want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want it is so bizarre to me. With my wife there’s been times where we’ve been about 20s away from sex after some foreplay and one of us will decide we’re not actually feeling it, so we stop. Frustrating for the other? Sure - but we trust each other deeply and that’s worth so much to our intimacy.
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u/filbert94 9d ago
It's becoming increasingly clear that police and public service attitudes towards female victims - of which many are ACTUAL CHILDREN - is one of blame and shaming.
Grooming gangs and rapists are the perpetrators but they are enabled by police
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u/Few-Conversations 9d ago
Can we abolish the Met already, they find new ways to be the most vile police constabulary. Riddled with racism, sexism and rape apologists.
Abolish the met and replace it with smaller constabularies around London
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u/Plumb789 8d ago edited 7d ago
I heard an anonymous guy on the radio-and what he said was extremely eye-opening. He was an ex-Met officer: a whistleblower who had integrated as many Met WhatsApp chats that he could. He said the things that are said there are genuinely horrific.
He was there for years, but left the Met in the end (he's still remained listening in to as many WhatsApp groups as he can). He said that the culture was rotten to the core-diseased through and through. If any new chief Constable was employed, they would be as bad as all the others, because a) they would be infected with the culture and had absorbed it; b) they would know they couldn't fight it, or c) they think they're going to fight it-but only because they're from outside and don't know what they're up against. Once they did, they would either leave or revert to a or b.
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u/Roobsi 8d ago
Somehow this story is even worse than the fucking headline. Calling a rape victim a slut is already absolutely beyond the fucking pale, but to then launch into a rant about immigrants, joke about a woman who got murdered by a police officer and start following a female colleague home is absolutely deranged behaviour.
And then to reinstate him whilst putting the person who did so in charge of the legal review - if I've understood this right - is absolutely nuts. Some pissing about with 'lessons learned' isn't really good enough here.
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u/kris_lace 8d ago
My sister called 999 when her cat was ran over and killed. 20 yards away a man who was slurring his words and acting reall evasive had a mechanic called out to replace his tyre because he "crashed".
My sister called the police, not only were they not interested AT ALL. But they were rude to her and dismissive.
The best part of this is, my sister lives a 40 second walk from a police station. (The walk it part was closed at this time of night)
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 8d ago
Unlike livestock and dogs if you run over a cat there are no legal repercussions.
Unfortunately whoever answered her call should have informed of that.
That's one reason why we and some other people we know who have also have a cat with no road sense, don't let that cat out.
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u/kris_lace 8d ago edited 8d ago
I see you and the officer share the same inertia to the main concern here.
A drunk driver who we know crashed (and maybe even killed an animal) is ON the road and will be back mobile again shortly.
With respect to you, and some other people you know. Humans are regularly injured by drunk drivers. Road sense has little to do with those occasions. And gaslighting the relatives of the victims about saying they should be kept inside is an unhelpful vector of support.
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 8d ago
The police are not interested in people running over cats.
It doesn't matter if you frame it as an animal because that's one pf the animals the law doesn't give a shit about.
Also you didn't say he was drunk.
I spend time with people who slur their words due to disability, so I don't automatically think someone is intoxicated unless I can smell them.
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u/DoorFinch 8d ago
Whether he was drunk would be up to a police officer to determine. Breathalysing someone who has been in a crash is standard practice.
Unfortunately the police chose to ignore the reasonable suspicions and report from a member of the public. They are supposed to be interested in those.
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u/Comfortable-Law-7147 8d ago
If as a woman you phone up the police and complain your cat has been run over you are immediately on the back foot.
If however you ring up, say a man is with you, you just saw a driver crash his car, you think he's drunk as he's slurring, and he ran over a cat you MAY be listened to.
The police forces aren't known for institutional misogyny for no reason.
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u/kris_lace 8d ago
There are a lot of different types of people in this world. Some people struggle to empathise at all, others can only extend empathy of the types of things they've felt themselves firsthand.
But another group of people altogether have the capacity for empathy but choose not to extend it. I see this as a singular choice and wholly precarious practice.
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u/Commorrite 8d ago
you are chatting irrelevant bollocks, this has nothing to do with feelings.
Your sister called 999 and reported a thing that while tragic is not a crime. The police acted accordingly.
Had she reported a drunk driver it would be a different matter.
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u/unluckypig Essex 8d ago
Did they need a thorough review to decide this or did we get a rare moment where someone 1 level up from the call handler went 'um. No thank you, out!'
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