Met Police crowns Black History Month officer while shunning trauma response staff in diversity awards

A leaked police memo showed that awards were handed out to officers, staff and members of the public across 12 different diversity categories.

The Met documents said that for the “Delivering for Colleagues” award, a Superintendent was crowned the winner “for her work on Black History Month, organising a month of events to celebrate and acknowledge the lives and culture of London's Black communities”.

Meanwhile, 12 officers were featured as runners up “for their work in wellbeing in terms of Trauma Impact Prevention Techniques”, described as “an evidence based, peer reviewed set of strategies designed to aid healthy cognitive processing of difficult life events”.

A Met source told GB News: “These awards are at best a waste of time and resources and at worst actively detrimental to the business of policing.”

“The fact that performative diversity in the form of events for black history month beat work to help officers cope with their traumatic job speaks volumes about the Met's priorities.”

The shunned officers worked with the charity Police Care UK which supports police who have been impacted by trauma in their work, for example by witnessing violent crimes or those who have been attacked.

For the Race and Inclusion award a detective constable won “in recognition for organising and running the first Diversity Celebration Day at Croydon police station”.

Rory Geoghegan, founder of the Public Safety Foundation and a former Met constable, said: "The Met's most vital resource are the dwindling numbers of brave men and women on the frontline.”

“It's hard to imagine that racial history lessons - however good they might be - would deliver more for colleagues than the provision of desperately needed and evidence-based mental health and wellbeing services for officers routinely exposed to life-threatening or life-changing events."

"The Met's ongoing recruitment and retention crisis won't be solved until the senior team get serious about improving the lot of the beleaguered frontline."

A ceremony was held on 9 May where Commander Colin Wingrove handed out the celebrations.

The Met’s diversity memo discussing the awards, seen by GB News, states that “colleagues were recognised for their outstanding contributions to build more trust and drive higher standards”.

The document continued: “Our guiding principles and values as part of New Met for London are integral to delivering policing by consent, and cultural reform across the organisation.”

Kevin Hurley, a former Detective Chief Superintendent, said: “It is disappointing that with large numbers of black children being stabbed or shot to death on the streets of London that these police officers and staff don’t do the job they are paid for.”

“Keep the public safe, in this case the black kids and their families suffering from violent crime.”

Hurley said the met should stop “playing internal games based on the ‘diversity gravy train’ to get themselves easy jobs where they can avoid conflict or get promoted”.

According to the leaked police memo, Mr Wingrove said: "It was a privilege to meet some of our amazing colleagues and celebrate the work they are doing across the Met to foster trust with our communities and raise standards, demonstrating the commitment to our values and guiding principles.”

“The calibre of entry, nominated by colleagues and judged by a panel including community members has been truly exceptional.”

“I look forward to seeing how our award winners working across the Met inspire others to help create an inclusive Met that delivers an even better service for the public."

The Met were approached for comment.