Black female Met Police firearms officer who won £40k at tribunal has all charges against her dropped
PC Carol Howard was arrested and bailed for more than a year over eight different allegations, including assault, witness intimidation and possession of an indecent image of a child
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Police have dropped all criminal allegations against a black female police officer who was repeatedly arrested during her successful legal battle against Scotland Yard for sexual and racial discrimination.
PC Carol Howard, 35, was held by officers from the Metropolitan and Sussex police forces on three occasions in the year leading up to her employment tribunal against her employers.
The firearms officer won £40,000 earlier this month after the tribunal concluded she had been bullied, harassed and smeared while serving as one of only two black officers in the 700-strong Diplomatic Protection Group.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met Commissioner, was also criticised personally for attempting to “brush off” her treatment as “insignificant”, and his failure to apologise to Ms Howard led to the award of aggravated damages against Scotland Yard.
The tribunal also found that the embattled force deleted references to discrimination from an internal report that would have backed Ms Howard’s case.
Today, it emerged that the Met and Sussex police had dropped their investigations into the mother-of-two – just hours after the Equality and Human Rights Commission announced it would carry out an inquiry into claims of “unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation of employees by the Metropolitan Police” against her.
She was arrested and bailed for more than a year by the two forces regarding eight different allegations, including assault, harassment, making threats to damage property, perverting the course of justice, witness intimidation and possession of an indecent image of a child.
Today, Ms Howard said: “I’m appalled and disgusted that the police have put me through 13 months of hell simply because I stood up to the Metropolitan Police and challenged discrimination at work.
“As a working police officer I know that these allegations would not normally have been investigated in this way and for this long. I was punished by the police for challenging them and they tried to smear me as a result. Lessons need to be learned by the police, and quickly.”