UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer has advocated reforming London’s Metropolitan Police «through and through» in the wake of the David Carrick scandal, an officer who this week admitted to dozens of sexual assaults, and has even advocated changing the department’s name.
For the leader of the British opposition, the facts recognized by Carrick are «incredibly shocking», although he considers that there were also other scandals within Scotland Yard, such as the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of Wayne Couzens, a serving officer.
«There needs to be an end-to-end review, a cultural change, because it’s not just the perpetrators, it’s those who allowed this to happen, (those who) didn’t take action when they should have,» Starmer said during an interview for the News Agents podcast, picked up by ‘The Guardian’.
At this point, Starmer alluded to the comprehensive reform that took place around the Royal Uslter Constabulary, the Northern Irish police force that, after the Good Friday Agreement, changed its name to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
«It was very important that it was called the Police Service of Northern Ireland because it changed the way the force was seen, it was a service to the public, not a police force,» Starmer has defended, extolling this change of nomenclature as a «very important» step in trying to achieve peace in Northern Ireland at the end of the 20th century.
His interlocutor then questioned him on whether, in view of the controversies surrounding the London Metropolitan Police, he would advise his daughter to ask an officer for help if she was lost in the street in the early hours of the morning.
Starmer, for his part, has responded with a resounding «yes» to also emphasize the importance of conveying a sense of confidence in the country’s police officers. «I understand the concerns that many people may have about this. But yes, I would,» he concluded.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
