Analysis: Forty years of warnings, one leaked report. Inside the Met’s long denial of racism
From Scarman to Casey, inquiry after inquiry has exposed racism within the Metropolitan Police. Now, a leaked internal report confirms that anti-Black racism is embedded
For more than forty years, official reviews have warned that racism is embedded in the Metropolitan Police.
From Lord Scarman’s 1981 inquiry into the Brixton uprisings to Baroness Casey’s 2023 review, each investigation diagnosed harm and prescribed reform. Yet each time, the institution carried on largely unchanged.
Now, a confidential internal review - the Met’s first-ever investigation into anti-Black racism - has come to light.
As revealed through my investigation for The Guardian and seen by Black Current News, the report was commissioned by the Met itself, then quietly buried.
The leaked 30 Patterns of Harm report - the Met’s first-ever internal review into anti-Black racism - shows how deeply those old wounds remain.
It maps, in the words of lead reviewer Dr Shereen Daniels, a system where “racism is not dysfunction - it’s design”.
Across four decades, the message has been pretty consistent:
Scarman Report (1981): Denied institutional racism, framing the Brixton unrest as a problem of community relations rather than police conduct, but did acknowledge racism in policing
Macpherson Report (1999): Declared the Met “institutionally racist” after the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry, calling for systemic reform
MPS Race and Faith Inquiry (2010): Found continuing barriers for Black and Asian officers in recruitment, promotion and internal culture
Lammy Review (2017): Highlighted racial bias in the criminal justice system, including policing practices and outcomes
Casey Review (2023): Concluded that racism, misogyny and homophobia are “institutional” within the Met, echoing Macpherson’s findings almost word-for-word. Worth mentioning that this was a broad review and racism - and Afriphobia in particular - wasn’t addressed in great detail
30 Patterns of Harm (2025): The first internal, explicitly anti-Black racism review commissioned by the Met itself
Caution
In addition to this, many Black people - within and outside of the Met - have been warning of racism for years.
One of the things that sets 30 Patterns of Harm apart is its refusal to offer cosmetic “recommendations”.
Instead, it identifies how racism is normalised, reinforced and hidden inside the organisation’s everyday systems: Complaints reframed as “feedback”, training used as cover for accountability, Black officers told to soften their tone or wait their turn, algorithmic HR tools reproducing bias “at digital speed” and more.
The report, authored by Dr Shereen Daniels, concludes that meaningful reform depends on what the Met chooses to stop protecting, not what it promises to start doing.
Placed alongside four decades of official reviews, this leak doesn’t expose something new - it confirms what every inquiry before it has already told us: the Met doesn’t lack evidence of racism, it appears to lack the will to act.
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