Met Police officers ‘said immigrants should be shot’ between pints at the pub

Metropolitan Police officers called for immigrants to be shot, said Islam is a ‘problem’ and shrugged off rape allegations, the BBC has found.

In 2023, a damning report concluded that London’s police force is crawling with racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia.

The report, which followed the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met officer, sparked a reckoning within the force and pledges for change.

But according to an exposé by Panorama airing tonight, such views have far from been weeded out – they have instead moved ‘underground’.

Journalist Rory Bibb spent seven months undercover at the Charring Cross police station, rubbing shoulders with top brass during the day and downing pints with rank-and-file officers at night.

Secret filming showed officers making sexualised comments, saying the UK is being ‘invaded’ by immigrants and recalling how an officer ‘stamped’ on a detainee’s leg all between pints at the pub.

During this, some admitted that they could ‘lose their jobs’ over the remarks.

PC Phil Neilson, of the West End team, told Bibb while off-duty at the pub what he would ‘do’ to a detainee who had overstayed their visa.

He said, according to the footage: ‘F***ing, either put a bullet through his head or deport him. Because we’re paying for it. He was an overstayer.

Neilson said that ‘a revolver would be so nice’, adding that the ‘ones that shag, rape women, you’d do the cock and let them bleed out’.

He added elsewhere that Algerians were ‘scum’, Somalians were ‘f**king ugly’ and added: ‘I think any foreign person is the worst to deal with.’

The BBC also filmed Sgt Joe McIlvenny making sexualised remarks about a woman who had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly while wearing a fancy dress police costume.

‘I’ve paid money to go to clubs and see women dressed like this,’ he was recorded saying before going down to help search her.

In another clip, McIlvenny chuckled as he told staff at the custody suite a sexual encounter with a woman ‘so fat, she had two p*****s’.

A female designated detention officer also asked McIlvenny why a man accused of raping and stamping on the stomach of his pregnant girlfriend had been released.

He replied, according to the BBC: ‘That’s what she says.’

PC Martin Borg, meanwhile, was asked his views on which ethnic group causes him the most ‘grief’.

‘Muslims,’ he replied, according to the programme. ‘Hate us. They f***ing hate us. Proper hate us. Islam is a problem. A serious problem, I think.’

Separately, Neilson said at the pub: ‘I’ve seen too many Islamics committing crimes. Their way of life is not the correct way of life.’

Police officers must abide by the Standards of Professional Behaviour, which says they must be ‘tolerant’ and ‘act with fairness’.

The ethics code adds that officers can only use force when it is ‘proportionate and reasonable in all the circumstances’.

But the BBC reporter said that over drinks while off-duty, Borg told staff about Sgt Steve Stamp, known to colleagues as ‘Stampy’.

Stamp brought his leg down twice on a detainee who had spat at officers and urinated on the door of the cell, a moment captured by CCTV.

‘He had a lump on his foot that looked like a fucking tumour, mate, afterwards,’ Borg added.

Nine officers and one staff member have been suspended following the investigation, while two more officers are off front-line duties.

One officer has also been informed that they will be criminally investigated.

In a lengthy statement to the Metro, Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: ‘The behaviour depicted in this programme is reprehensible and completely unacceptable.

‘Officers behaving in such appalling, criminal ways, let down our communities and will cause some to question if their sons and daughters are safe in our cells, and whether they would be believed and respected as victims of crime. For that, I am truly sorry.’

Rowley, who became chief after Cressida Dick stepped down amid reports of bullying, misogyny and racism in the force in 2022, said the custody team has been disbanded.

Met officials are working with IOPC, the police watchdog, to fast-track misconduct hearings, he added.

Rowley said: ‘ We are partway into conducting what is already the biggest corruption clear-out in British policing history.

‘We are relentlessly arresting and sacking officers and staff with 11 forced out each week – more than triple the rate of the previous weak approaches that left this toxic legacy behind.’

IOPC director general Rachel Watson said investigators are reviewing CCTV footage.

She said: ‘Like others, I am appalled by what Panorama has exposed – these behaviours are completely unacceptable and have no place in policing.

‘I know there will be a great deal of concern from the public, many of whom will be feeling a loss of trust and confidence in the people whose job it is to protect them.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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