A police officer for 11 years, I was brainwashed into thinking male colleagues’ misogyny was normal
Many of the men I worked with were good men. The problem was, the ‘good men’ laughed along with the ‘bad jokes’.
I was sitting in a riot van in central London, in full Metropolitan Police uniform, when I was forced to watch hardcore pornography by my colleagues.
There were eight of us in the van, one sergeant, an inspector, and six constables. I was the only woman.
A male colleague thrust his phone into my face and laughed while violent pornography played in front of me. Soon, everyone was laughing and, despite feeling incredibly uncomfortable (and to my shame), I found myself laughing along.
I didn’t want to see it, and I felt instantly vulnerable. But faced with the choice of ‘making a fuss’ and the risk of being ostracised, I chose to acquiesce.
I served as a police constable in the Metropolitan Police Service from October 2004 until February 2015. I joined to help people. I thought everyone’s motives for joining were the same, but over time I came to realise that this wasn’t the case.
Some seemed to be there solely because they were attracted to the power that came with being a police officer. It has taken me a long time to realise just how institutionalised I was while serving, and, the more time elapses since I left, the more I realise just how toxic the culture was – especially for women, and even more so for women of colour.
Soon after starting, I noticed a difference in the way female officers were treated to their male counterparts. For example, there was a constant discussion of female officers’ sex lives; the nicknaming of women seen as ‘loose’ as ‘the team bike’ – comments on women’s bodies and bra sizes. It became almost a badge of honour amongst female officers to ignore, or join in with this behaviour.
I wanted to be accepted as ‘one of the lads’ – to be respected as a reliable team member, a good officer. In order to succeed, I felt that I couldn’t complain about the sexism I witnessed on a regular basis. Many of my female colleagues felt the same.
We’d all heard stories of women who had complained. Women who’d been transferred, or labelled as troublemakers.
In the worst cases, we’d heard of women who’d lost their jobs, or whose careers had been ruined because they’d complained of sexist treatment by their colleagues. I look back and wish I’d been strong enough to make a stand – but I was too scared to.
There are many excellent officers today who are doing their best in often impossible circumstances. Many of the men I worked with were good men. The problem was, the ‘good men’ laughed along with the ‘bad jokes’.
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They joined in when officers shared the location of scantily clad, attractive women on the radio over summer.
They laughed when a male colleague made blow-job jokes while I ate a banana in the canteen.
They shared the rumours of ‘silly girls’ who had sent their police officer boyfriends intimate photos of themselves, only for them to be shared around the station.
They asked me if I’d seen the ‘new girl’ yet, and was she fit?
The question I ask myself time and again, now that I’ve been away from the culture for eight years is: how can I have possibly thought this was normal?
It’s not only that this culture is accepted and perpetuated by men, but that women are institutionalised into accepting it. If you had asked me while I worked for the Met whether it was institutionally sexist, I would have defended it to the hilt. It’s only once you’re out, once you have distance from the beast that is the institution, that you can finally see it clearly.
It started at Hendon, where myself and the rest of the women in my class were separated from the men and told not to get pregnant by our female tutors. This was obviously a message that male officers didn’t need to listen to.
Most officers joining are young and impressionable, many have not experienced another working environment before. When young men and women look about them for guidance, and the people they look up to are laughing, they are conditioned to think that toxic, sexist workplaces are ‘normal’.
I resigned in 2015, after becoming disillusioned with policing and struggling with vicarious trauma. Knowing what it was like to work in the Met, it doesn’t surprise me that former Met officer David Carrick was allowed to thrive, targeting multiple women over his 20-year career and using the power of his position to terrify women into keeping quiet.
It also doesn’t surprise me that the Met is reviewing over 1,600 cases of domestic abuse and sexual offences involving its staff.
Nothing will change until the Metropolitan Police Service, and every UK police leader, admits that the power of policing attracts bullies: men who want to get close to and abuse vulnerable women and girls.
We know that ‘power corrupts’, but policing needs to acknowledge that ‘power attracts’, because while everyone is looking at how police behave, police overseers need to instead be examining who the police are – and the dangerous and patriarchal systems that attract them in the first place.
Although I enjoyed much of my career in the Met, and gained some dear friends while working there, I am glad to be away from a culture that slowly eats away at your efforts to ‘do the right thing.’
I hope that the service admits that it attracts dangerous men, more than other professions, and that it commits to routing out every single one of them.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing emmie.harrison-west@metro.co.uk.
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MORE : Ex-Met officer says she saw male colleagues share ‘revenge porn’ while at work