The Metropolitan Police Service has a “rotten core”, according to an ex-detective who says the force orchestrated a cover-up after he reported misconduct by senior officers.
Tom Coling and another ex-cop from his unit described a toxic culture of bullying in the South London Child Abuse Investigation Team (CAIT).
They said they were pressured to arrest innocent people and force good parents to accept cautions, to try to boost the unit’s “clear-up” rate.
Tom has published a website detailing a catalogue of alleged misconduct and poor practice he says he witnessed.
He and Jan Pyle both quit after becoming disillusioned with their jobs.
They told the News Shopper that a police sergeant was captured in a secretly-filmed sex tape at the home of a prolific paedophile, but never questioned about it.
They also said Tom and a colleague were ordered to tamper with evidence at the scene of a baby’s death.
Tom claimed he was bullied out after raising complaints about what was going on.
“I’m pro-police,” he said. “I love the police. It was an absolutely amazing job. But there is an absolutely rotten core.
“For me to see how rotten it was and not to do anything about it – that’s just not me.”
He has called his website “The Honest Cop”.
“Disgusting”
Jan, who spent 20 years in the Met, described Tom’s treatment as “absolutely disgusting.”
“Tom was a brilliant police officer,” she said. “A fantastic, top-rate officer. He was very thorough. And that is what they didn’t like.
“You just wonder how many other lives they made unbearable. And Tom’s was unbearable. I saw him broken. He was absolutely broken. They were bullies.
“All the other teams, if you had a big case they’d take all your other cases off you and you just concentrated on that one.
“But not Tom. He had to carry on with everything else he’d got. He wasn’t given any extra time.”
He was set up to fail and then his work was picked apart, Jan said.
Pressure
The pair claim they were pressured to criminalise good parents as it would “look good on numbers.”
Many of team’s cases were difficult, like sexual abuse allegations which might never result in a conviction.
So to bolster the “clear-up rate”, said Jan, loving parents were given criminal cautions.
Police would be called because a child told a teacher they’d been smacked. Officers would find a well-cared-for child had been given a light smack for a good reason.
But as long as the parent admitted the smack, officers were ordered to caution them.
“That’s how you got your clear-up,” said Jan.
“If you’ve got a child that’s trying to put their fingers in a socket, then you’re going to raise your voice and give them a tap on the hand.
“But they would say, ‘No, the parent needs to be arrested’. There were a couple of times when I wouldn’t do it, and that’s when I ended up having quite a run-in with a sergeant.”
CATCH UP:
“Never enough officers”
“The hours were unbelievable,” said Tom.
On nights when he should have finished at 8pm, he was often still at work at 2am.
He once finished a 10am to 6pm shift at 7.30am the next day.
“There’s never enough officers,” said Jan. “The work was constant. You didn’t really every have down days.
“You would do a 12 to 15-hour day and still be expected back in at seven o’clock in the morning.”
The longest shift Jan ever worked, she said, was 18 hours.
Often juggling more than 20 cases at a time, officers were resented for doing a thorough job.
Ahead of a foster carer’s trial for sexually abusing children, a colleague told Tom and Jan they were taking too long to prepare the files and it could be done much faster.
In court, Tom and Jan were told off by the judge. All the files rushed by their colleague were wrong.
“Enough is enough”
Tom said he was ordered by senior officers to break the law and to arrest people who had clearly not committed offences.
“Some of the decisions blew my mind, what they were asking people to do,” he said.
If he questioned the orders, he alleged, bosses said they didn’t answer to him and his job was to do anything they instructed him to.
Tom said he recounted bosses’ misconduct to the counsellor child abuse detectives were required to see twice a year.
He showed the News Shopper evidence that when he tried to obtain the records, the Met claimed they had gone missing.
After raising formal complaints about his bosses, his job became untenable.
Jan left not long afte, having collapsed in court under the stress of the job.
“I remember saying to this guy, ‘Can you pass me some water, please?’” she said.
“Then I don’t remember any more. I woke up on the floor and I had Tom in my ear saying, ‘Oh my God, Jan, I thought you’d died on me’.
“I was taken to hospital. They said it was exhaustion. And I thought, ‘Do you know what? Enough is enough’.”
Blowing the whistle
Tom and Jan first spoke out in 2021, in the Telegraph – although in less detail than in this News Shopper series.
“I got a couple of offers to write books,” said Tom. “I immediately said no, because I don’t want to be seen as profiting from my experiences.”
Instead, he is sharing his story online.
“My website is free so any Londoner can go onto it and say, ‘Let’s have a look at what the police are actually doing’.”
He has since retrained as a lawyer and said he was not afraid of defamation proceedings.
“I would be happy to stand up in a court of law and testify,” he said.
“I haven’t said anything unless I know it was evidenced in the reports that I filed at the time. They would have to disclose all the crime reports.”
Met Police
The Met has previously claimed to have “thoroughly investigated” Tom’s complaints and found no supporting evidence – which he and Jan said was not possible.
The force told the News Shopper that all allegations were investigated “with high levels of professionalism and supervision”.
It said a “New Met for London” plan had been drawn up, “reforming our culture, systems, processes, estate and equipment, to allow us to refocus our priorities and set officers, staff and volunteers up to succeed”.
Part of this plan was to “reduce the pressure on officers and staff by improving how we manage caseloads and growing demand”.
*Tom Coling’s website is www.thehonestcop.co.uk.
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