A BBC Panorama investigation has exposed shocking evidence of misogyny, racism, and unlawful violence among serving London’s Metropolitan Police officers, raising fresh questions about the force’s promises to reform after the murder of Sarah Everard.
In a footage secretly recorded by undercover reporter Rory Bibb, officers at Charing Cross police station, already the subject of a previous watchdog probe, were filmed joking about rape, making racist remarks about immigrants and Muslims, and boasting about violent assaults on suspects.
One officer admitted that such attitudes had not disappeared from the Met but had simply gone underground. “Someone new joins, boom, mask on. You’ve got to figure them out,” he told the reporter.
Among those caught on film was Sgt Joe McIlvenny, a custody sergeant with nearly two decades of service. He was repeatedly recorded making misogynistic comments to colleagues, including crude remarks about women’s bodies and his sex life.
More seriously, when challenged by a female colleague about releasing on bail a man accused of raping and kicking his pregnant girlfriend, McIlvenny dismissed her concerns: “That’s what she says.”
Former Nottinghamshire Police chief constable Sue Fish, who reviewed the footage, described his behaviour as “completely inappropriate, very misogynistic.” She warned: “As a woman as well as a former police officer, individuals like him have the power to make these sorts of decisions about my safety or other women’s safety, and that is terrifying.”
Panorama also learned McIlvenny had been investigated earlier in 2025 after allegedly telling an Asian woman in custody that she should work in the “massage business.” Despite this, he was reinstated before Panorama’s findings were shared with the Met.
Officers were also recorded bragging about using unlawful force on detainees.
PC Martin Borg described how his colleague, Sgt Steve Stamp, nicknamed “Stampy”, stomped on a detainee’s leg while he was being restrained. Borg laughed as he recalled offering to falsify a statement to protect his colleague, “Absolutely Sarge… I’ll put that in the MG11 if you like.”
Reviewing the footage, Ms Fish said such conduct could amount to “perverting the course of justice or conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.”
Another officer boasted of snapping tendons in suspects’ fingers during fingerprinting, while one admitted to striking a detainee “five or six times” in retaliation after being elbowed. “There’s definitely a little bit of red mist there,” he said.
In off-duty pub conversations, officers made overtly racist and anti-Muslim remarks. Borg described Muslims as a “serious problem,” while PC Phil Neilson suggested an overstayer should be shot, “Fucking either put a bullet through his head or deport him… and the ones that shag, rape women, you’d do the cock and let them bleed out.”
Fish condemned Neilson as a “violent racist” and added, “I have absolutely no confidence in him as a police officer whatsoever. To be frank, not much as a human being.”
PC Brian Sharkey, one of the longest-serving officers filmed, also made light of sexual assault allegations, remarking: “If you go down for a sexual assault, you might as well go down for rape,” before quickly backtracking that it was a joke.
After receiving a detailed dossier of allegations from the BBC, the Metropolitan Police suspended eight officers and one staff member, and removed two others from frontline duties.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the behaviour as “disgraceful, totally unacceptable and contrary to the values and standards of the Met.” He confirmed the Charing Cross custody team had been dismantled and that more than 1,400 officers and staff had been dismissed or forced out since 2022, “the biggest clear-out in the force’s history.”
But Rowley conceded, “Much more needs to be done to tackle the individuals and cliques whose appalling behaviour continues to let down their colleagues and Londoners. Our resolve to identify, confront and get rid of them is absolute.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has also launched an investigation, with director Amanda Rowe saying, “We are treating this matter extremely seriously.”
The revelations reignite the debate over institutional failings within Britain’s largest police force. Following Sarah Everard’s 2021 murder by a serving officer, a review led by Baroness Louise Casey concluded the Met was institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynistic, findings the force’s leadership initially resisted.
Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who also reviewed Panorama’s footage, said he was struck by the lack of discipline among senior officers: “High standards, values and discipline didn’t seem to be present or being inculcated by the people who were in authority.”
For Fish, the evidence shows the Met has consistently underestimated the scale of its cultural rot, “I’ve seen enough to say there is a highly toxic culture there of hyper-sexualised male behaviour, misogyny, racism, and gratuitous, unlawful violence. It’s always been a rotten apple, not a rotten barrel.”
