Siobhan Benita, Lib Dem Candidate for Mayor of London, has criticised Dame Cressida Dick for refusing to acknowledge the Met Police could still have a systemic problem with racism.

Speaking to the Home Affairs Committee this morning, Dame Cressida Dick said that institutional racism is not a label she accepts and denied there is any collective failing or systemic problem.

The Macpherson Report, in 1999, described the force as institutionally racist following an enquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence. Twenty-one years later and the Black Lives Matter movement has sparked a fresh round of concern about the continuing disproportionate targeting of BAME communities by the police.

Now Siobhan Benita is calling on Sadiq Khan to investigate whether the Met Police remains institutionally racist.

Siobhan Benita, Lib Dem Candidate for Mayor of London, said:

“In this period of heightened focus on the systemic racism that persists today, it is hugely disappointing to see the Commissioner of the Met Police refuse to acknowledge that our police force might be a part of the problem.

“Stop and search disproportionately targets black Londoners. The case of Bianca Williams has rightly caught the public’s attention.  Thousands more innocent black people are impacted in similar ways all year round.

“The Commissioner talks about progress, but we are now witnessing the biggest breakdown in trust between police and black communities in London in a generation. It’s been two decades since the Met Police were found to be institutionally racist. To rebuild trust, Sadiq Khan should investigate the Met again with the specific aim of finding out if the force still deserves that label.”