Dame Cressida Dick has left her position as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner

THIS last year has seen shocking revelations about a culture of racism, sexism and misogyny in the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

The deception, kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer shocked Londoners to the core.

This shock was compounded by the tone-deaf policing decisions made at the vigil for Sarah where women expressing their grief were handcuffed and man-handled by large numbers of Met officers.

Police communication at the time was woefully inadequate with the Met tying themselves in knots with a much-ridiculed suggestion that women should “flag down a bus” if they distrusted a police officer’s credentials.

The disgraceful sharing of images of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, by the officers tasked with protecting their bodies, revealed an utterly inappropriate “banter” culture in the Met, which was further exposed in the Hotton report published a few months later.

This report came with a content warning on the front cover and some of the revelations about the deeply misogynistic WhatsApp messages shared between officers are unprintable in the pages of a newspaper.

Caroline Russell

So, it is no surprise to hear stories about women officers feeling forced out by such a toxic workplace culture with sexist comments and pornographic images being freely shared in officer WhatsApp groups.

This culture affects the way Londoners see the police and hugely undermines trust and confidence.

The police have serious powers such as the use of handcuffs, stop and search and strip search that they can use on the communities they police.

These powers should only be used in ways that reinforce the principle of consent.

The scale of the problems in the Met affects us all.

Women should be able to expect to be heard and our concerns taken seriously.

We don’t want to be told to dress differently or stay safe at home.

Reporting red flags should lead to action and people facing violence at home should get the support they need.

It is clearly not just a few bad apples, more a case of several rotten barrels of apples in need of fundamental reform and the outdated racist and sexist attitudes need to be shown the door.

As the Mayor seeks to recruit a new police commissioner, it is so important that there is a clear vision for a 21st- century police service for our diverse city with its inclusive values and that Londoners and officers are included in a big conversation about what that looks like.

• Caroline Russell is Green Party councillor for Highbury East and a member of the London Assembly