Studio the Commissioner of the Met Sir Mark Rowley with good news an additional I understand 8.5 million pounds of funding so Mark as I say in the studio now to explain more okay thank you for coming along Commissioner where's the money going to be spent Sir good morning to you. Morning Nick. So we've made a lot of progress in bearing down on violence and this is about doing more of that and the Mayor's put some more money into it partly for the preventative work that gets run from City Hall, diversionary schemes for offenders but partly for the enforcement work we're doing with some of our some of our operations. So just to give you some some examples of that they're sort of taking on the drugs lines in London has had a big effect over the last year we find that the men of violence running drugs lines that sort of that sort of disputing drugs across London into the home counties, over 80 percent of them have got violence convictions. One in ten of them that we arrest for drugs lines have got previous arrests for murder that's the degree of violence in there. So just to illustrate it in the last week we we've arrested 14 people in charge of them closed down 13 lines and it's funding of more those sorts of initiatives which is which is really really important I mean last year we've reduced murder to its lowest rate since 2014 it's down at sort of around 110 by about 17 percent we halved teenage homicides last year I mean that's fantastic news and it's still every every murder is still a tragedy but the numbers are going in the right direction. Some of the things that we'll be using the money for to do more work on. So robbery, robbery is the one area of violence that I'm particularly concerned about that's sort of bouncing back too rapidly from its sort of COVID lows and we're working to suppress that at the moment so last week the team did 130 arrests so there's a lot of work going on there but we need to do more we're doing some counter pickpocket operations around sort of around sort of area around sort of Westminster Leicester Square and Central so all of that work and it it takes money it takes resource and it's good that the Mayor's put a bit more into it. What might lie behind the uptick in robberies Commissioner? Frankly I think it's fundamentally the street population so COVID not much street population, not much opportunity to steal phones and um phones and watches and we're seeing more of that more of that going on. So our operations need to be sophisticated, it's not just about targeting on the streets and doing we're doing undercover operations to catch offenders but also identifying where all the stolen phones going who's likely recycling those and going after those because that cuts off the criminal business. Your other task, and you've spoken candidly about this, is to improve the standards within the Met and obviously we see as you refer to these troubling headlines as the bad cops are rooted out how long is it going to take? Are you going to achieve it in your tenure? You'll never have an organisation of over 40 000 people that's perfect. I think the test that you ought to give me is am I going to be able to persuade the public of London that we are appropriately ruthless in guarding our standards because that's the test that we failed on isn't it. So I think over the next couple of years you will see all the evidence you need to that we are appropriately ruthless. But the cases that we're the cases we're building today so our appeals are generating more reports, if we're arresting an officer today for something horrific that won't come to court maybe for two years time. So there's going to be a long tail but convincing London that we're serious about this we'll be much quicker than that. And I think the point, my point is this is I don't want us to dominate the headlines the whole time I've got hundreds of problematic offers I need to sort out I've got tens of thousands of people doing these operations to deal with violence whether it's the sort of things I spoke about or dealing with violence against women and girls in the night time economy. But you've spoken passionately about regaining the trust. You'll need like an intelligence infrastructure within the force to find these people won't you because alright the ones you've already identified, they're on the books. What's your intelligence that's finding those that still need to be rooted out that we don't yet know about? So that's why previously announced the anti-corruption and abuse command and we've got we've strengthened our intelligence capability in there and our sort of covert tactics and we're getting more reports from the appeals we've done so all of that is happening. I promised when I spoke after the conviction of David Carrick I listed then the initiatives that we're doing and I said I'm going to give a big formal update at the end of March and I still intend to do that and that will be the first milestone in terms of saying to London look we are serious and we're making progress so hundreds already caught or being processed or being looked at hundreds more as yet undetected. I'm not going make up numbers. No I don't want to make up numbers. So my point is. Are you halfway there? My point my point is there are tens of thousands of great offices there are hundreds of people I need to sort out and that's what I'm working on. Alright can I take you elsewhere and I'll take you to Lancashire and you know the next question I'd be amazed if you didn't what was your reaction to police officers and Senior officers in Lancashire making public some of the background details of Nicola Bulley such as her problems with HRT and alcohol. I don't like to sit in judgment on a case that I don't know all the details on and that's I know that's going to annoy you when I say that thing but sort of I I've sat in the chair making difficult decisions on tricky murder investigations counter terrorist investigations and sometimes what you need to say publicly might look odd now clearly what will be in their minds most of all is you've got a very worrying situation you've got a very upset family and there's a woman who's been missing for a worrying amount of time and they're desperately trying to find her. They've decided to put some information out to help that process whether that was the right thing to do or not time will tell but I think we should all be focused on rather than this becoming a bit of a should they shouldn't they circus, we should all be focused on helping them find her. I will try again the Home Secretary is quote concerned the shadow Home Secretary described it as very unusual and Zoe Billingham somebody you'll know well former Inspector Police watchdog show said it will further rock public confidence. It will won't it and if you look at recent investigations Stephen Port Midland things like that the public are understandably skeptical about the capability of police to investigate. You're the most senior officer in the land we need a comment. So I wouldn't mind commenting on it if I had all the facts to hand. Respectfully Sir what you need to know we've released details of this woman and her problems with alcohol and HRT I'm not asking you for about what's happened to her that would be totally and utterly inappropriate but would you sanction such methods within the Met if somebody said to you gov we think we better release these details this woman's having problems with HRT and alcohol. Any time you're releasing personal information you need to be very very cautious is it absolutely necessary for a policing purpose to help achieve the aim in this case help achieve the aim of finding a a missing woman now they've made that call time will tell they refer themselves to the IOPC time will tell whether that was the right call in that circumstance but I don't know what information they have in front of investigating the case so so we're all judging that from outside I can understand why particularly with those other cases you mentioned particularly the other headlines around policing and the trust of women I understand why it plays into that but let's focus on finding it and then let's see whether the IOPC find that Lancashire got it right or let it wrong. But I will for one final reason come back on this which is you know one of the biggest tasks that you and your colleagues have is to restore Confidence from women what you and your women do so I will say again on behalf of women listening in this town was something like this to happen to a woman or their sister or their friend or whatever what details about their problems with the menopause be made public by the met I will try again they would find it rather odd would you not. It would be a rare thing it would be a rare thing to you and said I want to do it gov I would have to make the most compelling case wouldn't I it would be a rare thing to do but there may be a case where it is necessary to do and that's why I don't want to be absolute but it would be a rare thing to do we we need to release the information that helps find somebody and Lancaster have made that call and I will tell whether they got it right or wrong. Does the Met standby ready to help if requested. Of course. Would you consider that how does it work so the way we do sort of murder investigations and high risk missing person investigations there is a a model which has a review stages after sort of seven days 28 days Etc and sometimes those reviews are done by an independent SIO within the force sometimes it makes sense to bring something from outside force so I'm sure Lancashire are thinking about the right time to have those sorts of reviews and if they decide to ask another Force then then of course I'm sure any other forces will be happy to help coming back a little bit to what we were talking about about your job to to improve the image of the Met with all the stories that are coming out about officers who've let down the tens of thousands of good bloke of women who serve under you and express that point again and let them down and by the way I don't think anybody loathes them more than the cops in the force I stress that as well but what does it do for morale and indeed recruiting when people see what has gone on in the Met can I put it to you it almost looks like a circus at times. So I I speak to a lot of Frontline men and women and they are they're really fed up and upset by these headlines but I mean that's I say that cautiously because the public are more important than us and we can't make ourselves the victim in this but they come to work because they join policing not because they're going to make loads of money at it because it matters and it's an interesting job and they want to make a difference for communities and they're in an organisation now which is being sort of challenged in headlines on a regular basis perfectly properly because of the actions of a minority and because as an organisation as I've said previously through systemic failings we haven't been tough enough on this and so the ones I speak to they get the fact that we need to face into this storm and go through it but it's not a pleasant place to be when they're out day in day out trying to do a good job for victims of crime in London. In your long career have you ever reported a colleague for being a rogue had a word with a senior officer. I've I've dealt with things as senior officer I sort of I can remember incidents as a I know as a as an inspector that I dealt with so I absolutely and I've always been tough on standards panels my standards panels myself and I think this is the this is the challenge I I face on the one hand people need to persuade it that me and my team as leaders are serious about this and you will see the results of that as I say building over forthcoming months but in parallel to that the way London has trust will will return is about the quality of community policing it's about how we respond to crimes it's about bearing down on violence it's about the violence against women and girls getting much better at taking on the Predators who target women and girls so we've got to do all of that to build trust whilst getting rid of these negatives that are undermining it. Talking about building trust and confidence in the Met are you aware of the percentage of detection of burglaries at the moment is desperately low do you know the figure. I don't have every detection figure on myself it's a little over four percent yeah it's not where it needs to be and I understand it should be more in the region of 30 to 40 percent what can be done about that that is pitifully low as regards burglary this is burglary detection by the way not report detection or other cases to be taken consideration. So I think I think the burglary detections on people's homes is much higher than that I think that figure is the wider that counts everything from a shed being broken into through to a sort of a high value burglary detections that's often when people come face to face with the Met isn't it so so they need the Met to really help them right so so the figure you've got there I don't think reflects burglary in people's homes one of the things I announced first of all was about we're now attending every burglary of someone's home which we which we weren't doing a while ago so that figures now up to close to 100 percent and that's both more reassuring for victims but also of course turning for the scene gives you more chance to find opportunities to solve the crime so all of that's about improving the day-to-day service to Londoners I've spoken about rebuilding neighbourhood policing we put in more PCSO's out on the streets that is part of preventing crime we're strengthening our approach range of crimes detection rates are going up in many respects like sort of like rape etc burglary I say again so so there's there's lots to do but there's great work going on in London just to sort of I look back around to the violence against women and girls agenda I mean we've got a project Vigilant which is about dealing with treasury men on the Streets of London around night time economy the areas we've deployed that in London in in Lambeth and other other centers has reduced night time economy related predatory behaviour by over a quarter I mean so there's lots of fantastic work going on there's always more to do Nick as you say I wonder if this comes down to can I use the word Manpower or Personnel last month it was announced every London borough get a senior officer to lead local policing as part of your priorities regardless you've just mentioned yes but I wonder shouldn't there possibly be a chief superintendent for each of the 32 London boroughs and some of those I understand one Chief could have responsibility for three boroughs well I don't need to tell you there's broadly 250 000 people per London borough that's about 750 000 under one Chief superintendent when I remind you the population of Bedfordshire who has its own Force Northamptonshire 714 000. there's not enough senior officers going around are there we need more Chief supers or above we've strengthened the local leadership with the superintendent model as you've rightly as you've rightly pointed out but I'm talking about the overall command the old habit having one of the days yeah I do so having the having the 12 larger units gives chief superintendents more flexibility on resource to have an impact on crime as when we had the 32 some of them were so small it was very hard for them to form a team to take on a burglary initiative or a robbery initiative the size gives them more flexibility but it's like police in the whole of Bedfordshire you've got a chief Constable there and an ACC it's not like policing the whole of Bedfordshire they have they have murder teams that Personnel it's different to that I think Nick if you'll forgive me I would say I'm closer to it I'm the I'm a bit more expert than you and how to organise a police force I would suggest you are rightly though on behalf of your listeners ask me a question about what it looks like for them on the street so if you can leave me to organise what's behind the scenes you're confident one Chief super can do three boroughs with the excess superintendents yes they absolutely can do but the questions you focus on quite rightly are what it looks like on the Streets of London I know we have a big job to rebuild trust that's why we're doing this extra work on violence that's why we say we've had these fantastic results on reducing on reducing knife crime and teenage violence and that's why we're putting more resource into that and that's where we're going to rebuild neighbourhood policing because communities want to see cops and pcsos where they live that know the issues and tackle them last couple of points the Met's appeal for people to come forward with regards to war crimes during the illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine which sadly is you're probably aware commissioner approaches its first anniversary next week actually specifically what do you imagine your colleagues are looking for there what are they wanting to hear what would they want to pick up on so we when we talk about the the counterterrorism responsibilities the Met has and sort of coordinates the national policing approach and Matt Dukes who leads on that for us was doing a briefing yesterday it's a pretty scary stuff so I mean we've the threat that they used to talk about the work was almost entirely dealing with terrorism now it's much more mixed and it includes quite a lot of war crimes work as you say and a lot of hostile State working he was speaking yesterday about significant threats from the Iranian State on the streets of the UK in terms of the war crimes piece through these war crimes legislation which every country has a duty to investigate so the sort of things we're looking at are use of sort of sexual violence for example in war zones is one very tragically common issue and we're trying to collect all potentially Russian soldiers might have used sexual violence to subjugate the locals exactly yes so that sort of thing that we may have refugees or people who know people who can make allegations and there's a a coordinated sort of operation on some International basis that will be feeding our information into so that's what that's about and it's important that if it is possible after this conflict finishes to hold anybody to account that would be excellent one that it would final question you have referenced neighbourhood policing a number of occasions you're probably aware that the shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was yesterday talking about bolstering neighbourhood policing and looking at recruiting thirteen thousand officers and pcsos I'm going to take you into a political arena Commissioner don't worry there but the same secretary did reference of course the famous Sarah Lancashire who plays Sarah Lancashire as Cawood, Catherine Cawood I'm so sorry Catherine Cawood in that marvellous show that I'm sure many people have watched your reaction like that do we need more Catherine Cawood's out on the streets she's great isn't she I'm my wife and I I were unashamedly, a bit of a smile I've seen from you that's it yeah my wife and I miss of Happy Valley my wife and I were and Heddon Bridge is a lovely place to visit as well visited as well in the past but my wife and I were has unashamedly hooked on on it as a program and whilst there's a bit of fixed in there as a sort of cop character she was she's she's a very attractive character and a larger than life, and is she the model what should we take from Catherine Cawood your bloke some women listening now I wouldn't want I've got about 34 000 officers I wouldn't want 34 000 Catherine Cawoods but a few would be quite would would be good value I mean we we need would you like it why don't you go home and watch comedy or documentaries about sharks or something like that maybe I'm just well you know Nick I spent four years out placing okay pleasing because I still I still love it I still love what we do regardless of these issues we've got to face down we've got lots of fantastic people and I've got lots of characters who are just as interesting as as Catherine Cawood not the same as her perhaps but lots of characters like that but neighbourhood policing is the way forward it's it it's the bedrock of policing I think as we've been stretched over the last couple of decades some of the resources and financial pressures have been sucked out of local policing that's our foundation there are other areas we need to put more resource into in due course work again sort of public protection and violence against women and girls that is is the reporting's going up all the time and that's a stretch the online fraud world I'm sure you've spoken about on your show sometimes but but what we can't do is stretch all the resources across that range and leave neighbourhoods bare because where we all live we all want to have a sense that there are local police who understand what's going on in our area and are working to make us all feel safe and that's really important