History of the Metropolitan Police

Before the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829, law enforcement among the general population in England was carried out by unpaid parish constables who were elected, and later appointed by the local justice of the peace.

Because this system of policing was largely unorganised and lacked a criminal investigation capability, the novelist Henry Fielding (who had been appointed a Magistrate in 1748) introduced the first detective force, known as the Bow Street Runners, in 1753.

To appear neutral, the uniform was deliberately manufactured in blue, rather than red which was then a military colour, along with the officers being armed only with a wooden truncheon and a rattle to signal the need for assistance.

[14] These divisions were:[15][16] On 28 June 1830, Constable Joseph Grantham became the first member of the force to be killed in the line of duty, an incident described by the Coroner's Inquest as "justifiable homicide".

[21] Detection of crimes was much improved when Sir Edward Henry, Commissioner from 1903 to 1918, set up a Fingerprint Bureau at Scotland Yard in 1901, building on Azizul Haque and Hem Chandra Bose's work with him in India.

[35] Female officers were allowed to go into brothels, nightclubs, and betting houses to observe and gather evidence of untoward behaviour, but at the first sign of crime being committed, they had to call in male colleagues.

In the wake of the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 they were granted the power of arrest for the first time and posted to various areas of the Met, with Louise Pelling attached to Special Branch and Lilian Wyles joining the Criminal Investigation Department as a statement-taker for sexual-offence cases, the CID's first attested female officer.

In 1936, just after his term as Commissioner, the authorisation to carry revolvers on outer districts was revoked, and at the same time Canadian Ross rifles were purchased in the prelude to the Second World War.

[43] Having been waived during the war, the marriage bar on female officers was permanently abolished in 1946 and two years later the Police Federation, the rank-and-file staff association, opened its membership to women.

In the aftermath of the shooting, 15% of firearms in service with the Metropolitan Police were found to be defective, leading to Special Branch and Royalty Protection Officers being armed with an early version of the Beretta automatic pistol.

The 1950s also saw the Metropolitan Police's first women officers to receive George Medals for courage, Sergeant Ethel Bush and Kathleen Parrott, who had been separately attacked by a sex offender they were on a decoy duty in 1955.

Teacher Blair Peach was knocked unconscious in April 1979 during a demonstration in Southall by the Anti-Nazi League against a National Front election meeting taking place in the town hall, dying the next day in hospital.

[citation needed] The Met was heavily involved in negotiations during the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege, though these were terminated after six days and the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) stormed the building.

[14][59] During the early 1980s, the Met began Operation Swamp which was implemented to cut street crime by the use of the sus law which legally allowed officers to stop people on the suspicion of wrongdoing.

[65] In 1986 Met officers also secured the conviction of Kenneth Erskine for a series of attacks in Stockwell on elderly men and women, breaking into their homes and strangling them to death.

Morgan's death has been the subject of several failed police inquiries, and in 2011 it was at the centre of allegations concerning the suspect conduct of journalists with the British tabloid News of the World.

[71] There was a great deal of media coverage of the 1992 killing of Rachel Nickell, after which a police sting operation against innocent prime suspect Colin Stagg was criticised as entrapment.

[81] That year, the dismembered body of a young boy believed to have been between the ages of four and seven was found floating in the River Thames, and named by police as Adam in the absence of a confirmed identity.

[84] The Metropolitan Police worked to a major incident plan to provide co-ordination, control and forensic and investigative resources after the 7 July 2005 bombings in 2005,[85] though in the aftermath of multiple attempted attacks two weeks later officers mistook Jean Charles de Menezes for a suspected terrorist as he boarded a train and shot him dead in a deployment of Operation Kratos.

[98] On 4 August the same year, Mark Duggan was shot by Metropolitan Police Service officers,[99] triggering a series of public disturbances, initially in the Tottenham but spreading into many other areas of London and including instances of arson and looting.

[100] Also in 2011 the Home Office asked the Met to support the Portuguese Police with a review and subsequent investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in Portugal four years earlier, which became Operation Grange.

[112] That year it also launched Operation Midland after Carl Beech, then known publicly under the pseudonym "Nick", alleged that he had been the victim of a VIP paedophile ring and that he had witnessed them murder three boys decades earlier.

Detective Superintendent Kenny McDonald issued a statement in which he said that they believed Beech's allegations were "credible and true" but the probe was closed after 16 months when no evidence was found to corroborate the claims.

[113] A report by Richard Henriques detailed numerous failings by the Met and found that those accused were victims of false allegations, prompting then-Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe to apologise to them.

In response, Peter Hain stated: "That the special branch had a file on me dating back 40 years ago to anti-apartheid and anti-Nazi League activist days is hardly revelatory.

The Metropolitan Police justified this due to recent budget cuts under the United Kingdom government austerity programme, but it was criticised in the press as giving the "green light" to thieves.

[118] 2017 also found the Met involved in countering and investigating terror attacks in Westminster (in which PC Keith Palmer was killed)[119] and on London Bridge and Borough Market, as well as its officers using riot shields to protect firefighters from falling debris during the Grenfell Tower fire.

Their review, published on 30 March, found that the police had "reacted appropriately and were not heavy handed" and were "justified" in their stance with respect to the Covid regulations, saying that the risks of transmission were "too great to ignore".

[131] Four members of Reclaim These Streets took legal action against the Metropolitan Police, claiming that their human rights to freedom of speech and assembly had been breached in connection with their attempt to organise the vigil.

The report branded the Metropolitan Police "institutionally corrupt" and personally censured its current Commissioner, Cressida Dick, for obstruction of the investigation, leading to calls for her resignation.