The Secret Policeman returns to undercover duties

Oct 5 2008

REPORTER Mark Daly went undercover as a police recruit for seven months to expose brutal racism in the ranks in award-winning BBC documentary The Secret Policeman.

The shocking expose provoked police chiefs to pledge that racism would be rooted out but, five years later, a sequel to be screened tomorrow finds little has changed.

Here, Daly explains why he was forced to return to the beat.

IN 2003 I spent seven months undercover as PC 2210 of Greater Manchester Police.

At training school, I discovered the kind of racism in the ranks that most people hoped and believed had been left behind decades before.

In the covert footage charting my time as a rookie recruit, one constable boasted how he would like to bury "Pakis" under a train track while others did little more to hide their ingrained racism.

The programme led to 10 officers being booted out of three forces. Pledges were made to rid the service of these cancerous attitudes.

The Commission for Racial Equality launched a formal inquiry and made 125 recommendations for change. Five years on, has it happened?

Without secret cameras this time, I wanted to find the truth about being a black minority ethnic officer in Britain today.

We sent a questionnaire to a thousand members of the Black Police Association who represent black and minority ethnic (BME) officers and staff.

We received more than 360 responses and they painted a bleak picture.

One of the most consistent complaints was that racism in the ranks was still there. But it was no longer in your face and had gone underground.

Many BME officers said they are held back from promotion or blocked from specialist posts because they do not belong to networks deciding career paths.

I was aware that officers who responded to my survey may have already suffered problems at work. But the statistics told their own story.

Of the 266 officers across the UK working in the most senior ranks only eight are BME. Two of the most senior, Ali Dizaei and Tarique Ghaffuer of the Met, are suspended.

There are none in Scotland, where, as of March this year, the most senior BME officer was a chief inspector.

When I was in the police, I saw how hard it was for BME officers. There was only one Asian in my intake, which comprised of 120 officers from forces all over the North of England and Wales.

I watched his isolation. Many in my class said they didn't like him. "He can't march properly" or "he smells of curry" were accusations I heard regularly. Others hated him because he was, to them, "a Paki".

He never made it through the course. Thankfully, he returned later, finished the training and is still a serving police officer.

Five years on, I was hearing about a different pattern of victimisation of BME officers.

I'd been told some feel under attack by their own forces.

Many say they have to work twice as hard as their white peers to get the same status.

But also, crucially, they felt they were more likely to be investigated by their own employers. If this was true, it was evidence of disproportionality and would help prove the contention that black people are treated differently in the police.

So, under the Freedom of Information Act, we asked every force in the UK about internal investigations.

Thirty forces responded and the results were alarming.

Strathclyde has the seventh largest ethnic minority representation in Britain. Of 7331 officers, 129 are BME.

Alarmingly, our research revealed they are five times more likely to be investigated than their white colleagues.

One in 84 white Strathclyde officers have been investigated internally while one in 16 BME colleagues have been probed.

Yes, there has been progress.

BME representation has doubled in the Met. Around a quarter of the Metropolitan Police's intake is now made up of BME recruits.

And four per cent of the total officer strength in the UK is from the BME community - around double what it was 10 years ago.

But when we asked BME officers if the situation had improved since the Secret Policeman, most said it had stayed the same or got worse.

This case is still a long way from being closed.

Panorama - The Secret Policeman Returns will be shown on BBC1 at 8.30pm tomorrow.