the times | Thursday April 28 2022 17
News
The Metropolitan Police were criti-
cised for a “culture of defensiveness”
yesterday after the announcement that
five officers would face disciplinary
proceedings over the arrest of the black
athlete Bianca Williams.
An independent watchdog said the
five should be charged with gross mis-
conduct after Williams, 28, and her
partner, the Portuguese sprinter Ricar-
do dos Santos, 27, were hauled from
their car as they returned home from
training in west London in July 2020.
The athletes, who believe they were
racially profiled, were handcuffed in
front of their baby son for 45 minutes
while officers searched for drugs and
weapons. Nothing was found.
Despite the finding by the Independ-
ent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC),
Sir Stephen House, the temporary Met
Commissioner, refused to apologise for
his defence of the officers in the wake of
the arrest. He had said that the five had
well at the Met. Sir Stephen’s comments
to London Assembly’s police and crime
committee shortly after the incident,
which he stands by today, demonstrate
that he is not the fresh start the Met
needs to address its systemic problems.”
The Met had previously said that a
vehicle with “blacked-out windows”
made off “at speed” on the wrong side of
the road. In fact the road is a single car’s
width and the rear windows of the
couple’s Mercedes had standard tinted
sun protection.
Dame Cressida Dick, who resigned
as Met commissioner over racism and
misogyny scandals, had also defended
the officers. She said she believed that
“any officer worth their salt would have
stopped that car being driven in that
manner” and that she did not accept
that the incident involved racism.
Williams said yesterday: “I welcome
this decision and hope this opens the
door for the Met to start being more
honest and reflective about the culture
of racism, which is undoubtedly still areality within the organisation. A clear
focus on the racism problem within the
Met by the IOPC is long overdue.”
She said she felt vindicated in the
light of Dick’s efforts “to discredit and
undermine our complaints, and to triv-
ialise the experiences of black people in
the UK and how we are policed”.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London,
said the incident showed the need for
Dick’s replacement to draw up a “more
effective plan to tackle the serious
cultural issues” within the force.
Bas Javid, the Met deputy assistant
commissioner, apologised for the dis-
tress caused to the couple and acknow-
ledged the IOPC’s direction.
“We have co-operated fully with the
IOPC’s investigation and, in accord-
ance with their direction, are now
arranging for an independently led
misconduct hearing to take place. I am
sorry for the distress that this incident
clearly caused.”
The Met’s lack of contrition shows it is a
law unto itself, Thunderer, page 28Ricardo dos Santos
and Bianca Williams
were detained for 45
minutes with their
baby son, left. Stephen
House, below, has
defended the officers
who made the arrestsA young man was being questioned last
night on suspicion of murdering his
girlfriend and three members of her
family days after being introduced to
them.
Joshua Jacques, 28, was arrested on
suspicion of killing Samantha Drum-
monds, her mother and grandparents
in Bermondsey, southeast London, in
the early hours of Monday.
Drummonds, who was killed days
before her 28th birthday, had intro-
duced Jacques to her family last week as
her boyfriend, although the two had
been friends for at least three years.
Jacques was tasered at the scene and
taken to hospital, where he was
arrested yesterday.
Last night he was being questioned
by police on suspicion of murdering
Drummonds; her mother, Tanysha
Ofori-Akuffo, 45; her grandmother,
caused to the couple and House stood
by his initial defence as “being factually
correct at the time”.
The Met said he had written to the
IOPC to “reinforce the importance
of senior officers being able to
respond to questions from our scru-
tiny bodies openly and transparent-
ly, and for advice and clarification of
the IOPC’s view of how he and his
fellow chief officers, both
in the Met and nation-
ally, should respond to
similar direct question-
ing in future.”
Jules Carey, the
athletes’ lawyer, told
The Times: “The
Metropolitan Police’s
response to the IOPC
announcement is dis-
appointing and tends to
suggest that its culture of
defensiveness, that values
loyalty to the uniform
over integrity, is alive andMet chiefs
defiant over
handcuffing
of athletes
been cleared by internal inquiries and
that videos widely shared on social
media did not show the “full picture”.
The IOPC found that five officers —
an acting sergeant and four con-
stables — had breached equal-
ity and diversity standards. It
said four also breached the
standards for use of force, three
breached honesty and integrity
standards and one breached
orders and instructions stan-
dards.
The watchdog is under-
stood to have raised con-
cerns that the officers for-
mally recorded that they
could smell cannabis as
justification for the
search, despite no such
evidence. Their cases
will be assessed at a tribunal
overseen by an independent
chairman.
The Met has limited its
apologies to the distressFiona Hamilton Crime Editor
Boyfriend arrested on suspicion of stabbing four to death
Dolet Hill, 64, and Hill’s husband,
Denton Burke, 58.
The suspect was born in south
London and lived at home with his
mother. Formerly the registered direct-
or of a courier company, he described
himself on Facebook as an “entrepre-
neur” and had worked as a painter and
decorator. He studied at South Thames
College and went to Crossways
Academy in Lewisham, southeast
London.
In 2018 Jacques updated his Face-
book profile to say he was a painter
decorator and that he had adopted
Islam. He wrote: “ABDUL RAHMAN
MY NEW NAME ISLAMIC NAME
DA #1 NAME OF ALLAH.”
He posted images celebrating the
rapper Tupac Shakur and the author
Sam Selvon.
Danny Ofori-Akuffo, who was
married to Tanysha, told The Times he
had spoken to her less than two hours
before she was killed. “I don’t knowwhat went on in that house, whether
there was an argument or whether
there was a fight, I don’t know. I keep
questioning to myself what happened,”
he said.
“I went to work on Sunday and called
my wife around 12am and spoke to her
and she said she was going to bed and I
said we would speak in the morning —
only to hear that she had been
murdered.”
He said that he was haunted by
thoughts of what had happened to his
wife and how no one was able to help
her.
“Nobody knows that feeling until it
happens to them. I haven’t slept for
three days now,” he said. “Why would
he do that?”
Paying tribute to his wife, whom he
met at work in 1992, Ofori-Akuffo said:
“My wife is a saint, like them all. She was
a lovely wife. I will never meet such a
woman again.
“Was she crying? Was she callingme? I talked to her not long before and
she was happy.
“She went there to care for her mum.
If she hadn’t been there this wouldn’t
have happened. I’m not heartbroken,
I’m dead.”
He said that his friends and the widerfamily would never be able to get over
the tragedy.
“All those who know my wife are cry-
ing because she was a lovely friend to
them, and my mother-in-law, they
knew her as a lovely lady,” he said.
“Even if we get justice, it will never
bring me any happiness because it’s
already destroyed what I have. We werea big, happy family, we were people who
always reach out and make friends and
their absence is going to hurt so many
people. It has left a big gap that can
never be filled.”
Hill worked as a housekeeping assist-
ant in the pharmacy department of
Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital for
more than 21 years until she retired in- Her granddaughter had been
staying with her while her flat was being
refurbished and her daughter was help-
ing out because Hill had been under-
going treatment for breast cancer and
“winning her fight”, friends said.
Detective Chief Inspector Linda
Bradley, who is leading the investi-
gation, said: “This was a truly horrific
incident and I fully recognise that the
distress for the family and the commu-
nity will be overwhelming. We are
conducting a thorough and detailed
investigation into the facts and we are
appealing to anyone who can assist
with any information to come forward.”
Neil Johnston
John Simpson Crime Correspondent
Joshua Jacques,
28, said he had
changed his name
to Abdul Rahman