6/24/2005 7:00:00 AM GM

http://www.islamonline.com/cgi-bin/news_service/world_full_story.asp?service_id=1580

Source: BBC

More Muslim police officers are needed in London to reflect the city's population, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Ian Blair said.

Sir Ian said that there were about 300 officers in the Muslim Police Association but noted that he wanted "as many as I can get".

He also tried to defend the rise in the stop and search of Muslims, claiming that it was less than 10 times per day of London's 700,000 Muslims.

The government targets state that 25% of Met officers must be non-white by 2009.

Currently the proportion is around 7%, although ethnic minorities amount to about 17% of all new officers.

Sir Ian said: "What I really need is more Muslim police officers.

"If something like one in nine Londoners is a Muslim, then I want one in nine police officers to be a Muslim. Which means we are currently about 2,000 short."

However, sir Ian said that the Met cannot reach the target easily.

Some white male recruits are waiting for more than three years to join the force as ethnic minority and women applicants are prioritized.
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http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/1/hi/england/london/4100176.stm

The three officers faced a disciplinary hearing after an Asian colleague complained they had made racist remarks at a training day in 1999.

The officers, who were later cleared on appeal, say they were "hung out to dry" to protect the Met's reputation in the wake of the Macpherson report.

Sir Ian denied this, but defended "fiercely protecting" the Met's values.

'Disproportionate over-reaction'

Asian Detective Sergeant Shabnam Chaudhri made the complaint after Detective Constable Tom Hassell, 60, referred to Muslim headwear as "tea cosies" and mispronounced 'Shi'ites' during a presentation on Islam in 1999.

Although he apologised immediately for the mispronunciation, DS Chaudhri complained he had been racist and his superiors failed to intervene.

It came in the wake of the Macpherson report into the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation which concluded the Met was institutionally racist.

A 2001 disciplinary hearing found them partly guilty of misconduct but recommended no further action be taken. Sir Ian questioned this and asked if the ruling could be challenged, but was told it could not.

Later an appeal cleared all three men.

Ruth Downing, on behalf of the men, suggested their treatment had been a "disproportionate over-reaction" and had the complaint come from a white officer, it would not have been treated the same way.

I would not seek out hanging somebody out to dry just to prove a point Sir Ian Blair

Questioning Sir Ian about why he wanted to challenge the June 2001 misconduct board's decision, she asked: "Could it be indicative of your anger or annoyance that the message you wanted to send out to those white officers would not be sent out through the disciplinary board?"

Sir Ian replied: "It is not about the white officers, it is about the city we serve.

"An officer had said what they said. They had not been reprimanded in any way by a supervisor, a disciplinary board found that while that had happened there was no further action - I thought that was awful."

He said the slurs were "repetitive, deliberate and offensive" and were made worse by the fact supervising officers laughed at them.

DC Hassell, Acting Det Ch Insp Paul Whatmore, 39, and Det Sgt Colin Lockwood, 55, are suing the Met for race and sex discrimination.

The tribunal, in Stratford, east London, continues.