the times | Wednesday May 25 2022 25
News
The chairwoman of a new scrutiny
panel set up to curb racism in the police
previously said that she has a “hatred”
of the Conservatives and her ultimate
aim is to end funding for police forces.
Abimbola Johnson, 34, an award-
winning lawyer, is one of three Labour
supporters among six members of the
Independent Scrutiny and Oversight
Board (ISOB) set up by the National
Police Chiefs’ Council and the College
of Policing.
Other members of the panel include
the Labour councillor Katrina Ffrench,
37, who previously shared a Black Lives
Matter (BLM) Facebook post that said:
“No justice, no peace, get the Met’s knee
off our neck.”
Nick Glynn, 54, attended events sup-
porting Jeremy Corbyn, the former
Labour leader. He has openly criticised
the Conservatives on his social media.
The panel is part of a drive to tackle
the number of black people and those of
other minorities who experience dis-
proportionality in arrests, excessive
force and other indicators of disparity.
At the launch of the panel Johnson, a
barrister who previously criticised the
decision to strip Shamima Begum of
her British nationality, said that police
officers should be comfortable with
being called “woke”.
She previously made calls on Twitter
to change police funding in June 2020
during BLM protests that summer.
She said people needed to “engage
and not react in knee-jerk fashion”, and
suggested funds be diverted to other
areas such as mental health services,
after-school programmes and shelters
“until you no longer need to fund a
New team tackling racism
wanted to defund police
police force”. Johnson, who said in her
post she was a Labour Party member,
argued that people had the “wrong
impression” of the BLM movement.
She said the movement “is meant to
make us think harder about how we
could run a safe and fair society without
the need for a police force”.
In another tweet she wrote: “Yes, the
ultimate aim is to create a societal
system that no longer needs the police.
Or at least doesn’t need police forces in
the sizes we have now.”
After the publication of a report last
year which concluded the UK was not
institutionally racist, she wrote:
“Whenever I wonder whether my
hatred of the Tories and their policies is
irrational, they do something to remind
me it’s justified. Ta race report for con-
firming I’m on the right side of history
and the lengths this govt will go to avoid
the truth and deny the experiences of
POC (people of colour)”.
Ffrench, a Labour councillor in
Wandsworth, southwest London, has
spoken against “police impunity”.
Glynn, a retired senior police officer
who spent more than 30 years on duty
in Leicestershire, described the Tory
party in a tweet in 2019 as “Lying.
Cheating. Misleading. Dishonest.”
Kevin Hurley, a former Metropolitan
Police officer and independent police
and crime commissioner for Surrey
Police, told the Daily Mail that calls to
end funding for the police were “naive,
ignorant or stupid” and the establish-
ment of the new board was a “cop-out”.
A National Police Chiefs’ Council
spokesman said that the board for the
Police Race Action Plan “were selected
for their skills, expertise and experience
in an open selection and recruitmentprocess. Board members have commit-
ted to approach their roles in an impar-
tial and non-partisan way.”
A spokesman for the ISOB said:
“Every ISOB board member had to
complete a high-level vetting before
being approved and they are commit-
ted to working constructively with
people dedicated to anti-racism work
regardless of political allegiance. There
is no concern over board members’ pro-
fessional or personal affiliations.”Ben Ellery
Nearly half the 43 police forces in Eng-
land and Wales have never had a black
officer in the top four senior ranks,
according to the latest data.
Nineteen forces have never had a
black chief inspector, superintendent,
chief superintendent or chief officer
since records began in 2007. More than
a third of the forces (13) have never had
an Asian officer in the same ranks.
Police chiefs apologised yesterday for
racism that remains in the service and
announced reforms to improve diversi-
ty and repair relationships with black
and minority ethnic communities.
After fierce debate the National
Police Chiefs Council (NPCC) did not,
however, declare forces to be institu-
tionally racist, a term some chiefs had
pushed to be included. Instead the
NPCC said it was committed to being
“institutionally anti-racist”.
Its action plan has been worked on
since protests in the UK over the
murder of George Floyd by a US police
officer in Minneapolis. It covered
measures to address race disparities,
both internally and externally, and in-
crease trust and confidence in the
police in black communities.
A Times analysis of Home Office data
shows the scale of the problem within
forces. The data reveals that 33 of the 43
forces have no black representation in
the top four ranks. No black officers
have been promoted into the senior de-
tective or chief officer ranks across
England and Wales since 2015. As of
Pledge to address lack
of diversity in top ranks
George Willoughby Data Journalist
Fiona Hamilton Crime Editor
March last year there were 167 officers
from ethnic minority backgrounds in
the top four ranks. Almost half of those
are in three forces: the Metropolitan
Police and West Midlands and Greater
Manchester forces. Almost one in five
forces did not have a senior black, Asian
or mixed-race officer.
Andy George, president of the
National Black Police Association,
called for a fundamental review of pro-
motions: “Promotion in the police ser-
vice is too often based on your network
and the portfolios given to you by
senior leaders. Due to a historic lack of
representation at all ranks, black, Asian
and ethnically diverse officers do not
have access to these networks and are
often given less important portfolios.”
Sir David Thompson, the West Mid-
lands chief constable who is leading the
race plan, said: “We have come a long
way but there is still much more that
needs to be done and progression
through the ranks needs to be faster.”
Across the ranks last year less than
1 per cent of promotions were handed
to black officers, and black and minor-
ity ethnic officers are more likely to face
harsher disciplinary procedures.
Rick Muir, of the Police Foundation
think tank, said: “It is not just important
that more black officers are recruited
but also that they are retained and able
to move up through the ranks.”
The charge of institutional racism
has been levelled against the police re-
peatedly because of disproportionate
arrest rates. Black people are seven
times more likely to be stopped and
searched than their white counterparts.Abimbola Johnson, left, Nick Glynn, and Katrina Ffrench, right, have joined the
Independent Scrutiny and Oversight Board, set up to curb racism in the police