In May's Mayor's Question Time, Caroline pressed the Mayor on scrutiny mechanisms for the Metropolitan Police. A positive step was the confirmation that outside expertise will be an important feature of the new Policing Board – as Caroline has called for in the past.
Responding to comments by London Mayor Sadiq Khan at Mayor's Question Time, where he refused to support repealing the Public Order Act, Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member and Police & Crime Spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
“The new powers in the Public Order Act are dangerous, unnecessary and illiberal. The recent arrests of republican protestors at the Coronation this month only demonstrated the array of problems within this legislation.
After the revelation that files relating to the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan were left locked in a filing cabinet and excluded from the independent inquiry into the case, Caroline Pidgeon has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner asking for answers.
Caroline said:
After everything Daniel’s family have been through and the disgraceful way the Met treated the Inquiry and report, how can this have happened? This is shameful.
Responding to the release of HM Inspectorate of Constabulary’s report into the investigation of the Stephen Port murders, Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member and Crime and Policing Spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
“The murders of Anthony Walgate, Gabriel Kovari, Daniel Whitworth and Jack Taylor were a tragedy and my thoughts remain with their family and friends who did not receive the level of support from the Met they deserved and have had to relive their pain during subsequent inquiries.
Responding to the news that the Metropolitan Police are the only police force in the UK not to meet their recruitment targets, Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member and Police & Crime Spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
“Londoners are crying out for a return to real community policing and the news today that the Met is the only police service in England and Wales not to meet its recruitment targets will rightly concern a lot of Londoners.
Responding to the news that the head of the Police Federation of England and Wales has said the Met is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic, Liberal Democrat London Assembly Member and Police and Crime Spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
“It is good to see that more people within the police are willing to describe the problems faced by the Met as they are – institutional.
Caroline spoke to BBC Radio London about the Metropolitan Police's lack of action on burglaries.
Caroline said:
in London last year, 37726 burglaries were reported and yet in one in three, the police don't even bother to turn up to see what's happened and to suport you. I think that's astonishing because that's when you feel most vulnerable.
Responding to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley’s letter on wrongdoing by police officers, Liberal Democrat Assembly Member and Police and Crime Spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon AM said:
"It is clear that the problems faced by the Met are as bad as many of us feared.
“Cleaning up the organisation is going to be incredibly resource intensive and take many months and years.
Information uncovered by the London Liberal Democrats has shown that not one of the Met’s Basic Command Units (BCUs) in London met the target response time for S-grade 999 calls – such as road traffic collisions, hate crimes, anti-social behaviour and burglaries – in the past three months.
The target response time for S-grade calls is 60 minutes. But between December 2022 and February 2023, not a single Basic Command Unit had an average response time of below 1 hour 15 minutes, with the average response time being 2 hours 2 minutes
In the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Caroline Pidgeon therefore asked the Met Commissioner to commit to stopping the closure of police stations – which are a core part of our frontline policing system and have been decimated.
