Why can police officers share hateful views on WhatsApp without fear of detection?

As another cache of appalling messages comes to light – this time, about the three Nottingham stabbing victims – Claire Cohen asks what will it take to prohibit the use of the private messaging platforms between serving officers

Ian Coates, Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar were fatally stabbed in Nottingham – and graphic details of their cases discussed by police colleagues on WhatsApp (PA)

A few months ago, I had a conversation with a female Met officer that has stayed with me. One of the worst aspects of working at her London police station, she said, was the incessant WhatsApping.

“It breaks down barriers between colleagues in a way that’s not professional,” she said. “Someone always goes too far, with something that’s sexist or racist. The boundary gets crossed.”

Few people could read about the messages sent by two Nottinghamshire police officers, in the wake of the murders of university students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, both 19, and caretaker Ian Coates, 65, in June last year, and not feel as though the concept of “boundaries” isn’t one that exists at all.

They shared graphic details about the horrific knife injuries suffered by the three victims, all killed by Valdo Calocane, and details about how the case was unfolding, which PC Matthew Gell – who wasn’t even working on it – apparently forwarded to his wife and a friend. The families of those murdered have said they’re “sickened” to learn of the officers’ actions.

Does that sound at all familiar? It should. We’d be here all day if I were to list all the vile WhatsApping that’s emerged in the three years since Sarah Everard’s rape and murder, by a serving Met officer, shone a light on a toxic culture within policing.

One lowlight was the jailing, in December 2021, of two male Met constables for sharing crime scene images of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman on WhatsApp. Another was the 2022 Independent Office for Police Conduct report into Charing Cross police station, which uncovered racist, sexist and homophobic WhatsApp messages between male officers. “I would happily rape you,” wrote one to a female colleague.

They just keep coming. In July last year, four Humberside officers were banned from working in policing and two were given final warnings, after being part of a “sexist, racist, homophobic, antisemitic” WhatsApp group. In November, five transport officers in Brighton were suspended for sending “potentially offensive” messages. In December, six former Met officers were handed suspended prison sentences for sending racist, sexist and homophobic WhatsApps, including some about the Duchess of Sussex. Need I go on?

Am I the only one wondering why the use of private messaging platforms between police officers hasn’t been banned?

That, after all the scrutiny and pledges of culture change, there are still some who believe they can get away with sending such appalling messages, should tell us that WhatsApp has been normalised as a place for police officers to hide from prying eyes.

Worse, there doesn’t seem to be a concerted effort from those in charge to stop the rot. In her review into standards of behaviour in the Met, published last March, Baroness Louise Casey heard evidence that officers were being encouraged to delete WhatsApps that could get them into trouble – if true, not so much an overhaul of policing as a cover-up.

A start might be for the punishment to fit the crime (though one could say that about our entire justice system). After asking for a “second chance”, as though he’d forgotten to hand in his geography homework, PC Gell wasn’t dismissed from Nottinghamshire police; the officer who sent the original message was, the force said, dealt with “informally”, and had undergone “developmental learning”. Oh well, that’s alright then.

We have to accept that, among some officers, WhatsApp has become a forum on which hate-filled views are allowed to flourish, and victims – you know, those they have taken an oath to protect – are being denigrated for laughs, or to make themselves look more powerful.

It’s pathetic and, yes, sickening. The sooner Britain’s police forces get that message, the better.