The high court has thrown out the latest attempt by the Metropolitan Police to sack a decorated senior black officer, with a judge describing one of his arguments as “hopeless”.
The ruling was a victory for Superintendent Robyn Williams, who was sacked by the Met and then had to be reinstated when a court ruled the force’s leaders had been wrong to take her job.
Williams was fired in 2020 for gross misconduct, following a criminal conviction for possessing child abuse images that were sent to him unsolicited in a WhatsApp chat group.
This conviction led to her dismissal from the Met at a disciplinary hearing chaired by a senior Met officer, despite many calling for Williams to be a role model who should keep her job.
In June 2021, the Police Appeal Tribunal (PAT) overturned the Met’s decision, saying the force had acted unfairly in dismissing her. The court said a final written warning would have been a fairer result because this was an exceptional case.
Despite this, the Met went to the high court to insist it was right in its decision to sack Williams, and in a ruling made public on Tuesday, Britain’s biggest force lost another high court case: after d ‘having spent tens of thousands of pounds of public money. .
Judge Heather Williams dismissed the Met’s arguments. From a claim that the officer’s conviction meant she must have been dishonest, the high court judge was withering: “The complaint that the PAT did not deal with the dishonesty of Superintendent Williams in putting forward a defense falsehood as an aggravating factor is hopeless. The PAT said in terms in its paragraph 39 that it took it into account as an aggravating factor.”
Superintendent Williams, 57, won plaudits for her work after the Grenfell fire in 2017, when relations between the traumatized community and the authorities were strained. She has campaigned for more women in the police and won the Queen’s Police Medal during her 37-year career.
In her ruling, Judge Williams wrote: “The PAT concluded that it did, because of the unique circumstances of the conviction, the stellar career of the officer, the substantial impact he had had in improving the reputation of the MPS as a whole and his assessment that his dismissal would reduce confidence in the police in some of the communities in which the MPS had struggled to gain trust.This was a conclusion admissible to arrive”.
The Met said: “We will now take time to carefully consider the judgments and next steps.”
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Janet Hills, former president of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, said the force must now stop its pursuit of Williams and doing so was a litmus test to see if it could be reformed.
“There has to come a time when an organization like the Met has to take stock and reflect,” Hills said.
“The Met needs to accept it got it wrong and address it with Williams and his family. If the new commissioner is serious about building bridges with the black community, then that’s where he needs to start.” .
The case began in February 2018 after Williams received a WhatsApp message from his sister that contained a video of a girl being abused. The sister was outraged and wanted the police to hunt down the culprit.
Williams never played the video, but a jury convicted her after prosecutors said she didn’t report it because she feared doing so would get her sister in trouble.
His sister sent the video of abuse to a WhatsApp group of 17 people, one of whom reported it to the police. Williams was the only one of the 17 to stand trial.