Leaked review of Met police body-worn video footage reveals officer errors

Memo explains reasons behind Scotland Yard decision not to routinely release content

Wil Crisp and Vikram Dodd
Mon 19 Oct 2020 11.39 BST

Scotland Yard has decided not to routinely release its own video footage of controversial incidents after internal reviews showed errors by officers, a leaked document reveals.

The Met has been plagued by a flurry of social media videos raising concerns about stop and search, use of force and racial profiling, prompting calls for footage from body-worn video cameras to be made public.

But in an internal memo seen by the Guardian, a senior Metropolitan police chief says incidents captured by cameras worn on officers’ bodies, recorded examples of “poor communication, a lack of patience, [and] a lack of de-escalation before use of force is introduced”.

The memo also states that force used by officers on members of the public could probably have been avoided in some instances.

It was based on reviews of 95 incidents by senior officers and was written by the head of professionalism for the Met, deputy assistant commissioner Matthew Horne.

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