'We must improve dramatically for London' Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley tells the London Assembly Police

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has set out how the Met continues to root out those who corrupt its integrity.

Sir Mark apologised again to the victims of PC David Carrick and warned there will be more cases as the service confronts a range of failings.

Speaking to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Sir Mark said "lifting the stone" has revealed "painful truths" that cannot be resolved overnight.

He said: "As we put in more resources, more assertive tactics, as we're more open to people reporting incidents to us both from within the organisation and from the public, and as we more determinedly take on these cases, it will tackle the problems we face.

"But it won't be rapid and it will be painful. In that context, we need your support and the support of the people of London. Please don't lose heart as we confront these issues and as we do this necessary and painful work to finally rid the organisation of those who corrupt our integrity."

The complete transcript of his opening comments is below and the full session, including questions from London Assembly members, can be viewed online.

Sir Mark Rowley:

"You are all aware that from day one, high standards has been top of the agenda for my Commissionership. I have been very honest about the fact that I am pleased to have tens of thousands of great men and women at the Met, I am always mindful they listen to my words as do the people of London who we serve. 

"And we are all equally horrified that we have hundreds in policing who shouldn't be here. David Carrick is an awful example of that.

"I must reiterate here my sincere apologies to the victims of Carrick for our failings - a range of poor policy and poor decision making. He shouldn't have been a police officer and we have failed. We haven't applied the same sense of ruthlessness to guarding our own integrity that we routinely apply to confronting criminals and I am deeply sorry for that. 

"I think we have failed as investigators where we should have been more intrusive and joined the dots on this repeated misogyny over decades. And as leaders, our mindset should have been more determined to spot and root out such a misogynist. 

"So I apologise to all of David Carrick's victims. And I also want to say sorry to all of the women across London who feel let down and whose trust in policing is shaken by this.

"I have promised action. From my first day four months ago, I said that the Met will become ruthless at rooting out those who corrupt our integrity - our integrity is our foundation. 

"In my first few months as Commissioner, we increased resources in the Directorate of Professional Standards by a third, established the Anti-Corruption and Abuse Command and launched the first ever public appeal line - the Crimestoppers Police Integrity Hotline. 

"We are getting tens of calls a week to the hotline, leading us to look at new cases. Some of these turn out to be malicious but some turn out to be substantive. These are generating new caseloads. In some ways, despite the tragedy we find ourselves in, we are actually leading the way. It is interesting that even though this is a Met appeal, one in three of the calls involve allegations against officers and staff in other police services in the UK, which we are passing on. Through our challenges we are helping the rest of policing confront some issues too. 

"I want to talk about review and redress. 

"The Home Secretary has rightly suggested that Lady Elish Angiolini widens the scope of her review to include this case. We will support that fully. 

"In terms of things that we are doing. I want to talk about Project Onyx and use of data to review the vetting of all officers and staff. 

"What is very clear is that if we haven't been tough enough in our decision making previously, you have to look back at previous cases and say are there other cases that we got wrong? Where we decided someone was going to stay in the organisation and in hindsight, was that wrong?

"We have cast the net wide. We have looked at any officers and staff over the last decade who have an allegation that has any hint of sexual misconduct or domestic abuse.

"These range from less serious allegations, largely verbal for example, all the way through to sexual assault allegations. Every one of them has been previously investigated and dealt with as either criminality or misconduct and came to the position where they remain in the organisation. What we have to work out is did we get this right.

"Some of the reporting in the news is that this is 1,000 new cases. This is not right. It is reviewing old cases. Given what we have found so far, with cases that have come to light like Carrick. 

"While we can be confident we will have got many of the cases right, we have to accept we will probably find many cases we got wrong.

"There will be people we need to have a fresh look at. That might be about their vetting, it might be about reopening investigations. There are all sorts of actions we might take but the first thing to do is to systemically review. This is a significant piece of work.

"The second piece of work is around a refreshed look at vetting. 

"The Police National Computer (PNC) has criminal records and convictions on it and we're confident we know all the officers who have criminal convictions. People shouldn't be too troubled by this. If someone has a caution as a thirteen year old for possession of cannabis it won't rule them out from being a police officer. 

"More importantly, the Police National Database (PND) has a much wider set of intelligence and arrests and other incidents that go beyond convictions. 

"We have washed all of our personnel data against the PND, to look at whether there are officers and staff that have had contact with the police, that may be troubling that we don't know about.

"You do that wash and you get a big pile of potential positives, which will include false positives and actual positives. There's then a manual process to work through that data.

"That's the tactic – we're the first people to do it at scale. The Home Secretary has now asked that all forces to do this now too.

"On Monday I spent the whole day with professional standards teams across London. The positive thing in all this – they are ordinary police officers who have moved in to these roles. Some recently, some a long time ago. Their passion and commitment to take this on was really uplifting.

"The last thing I want to say is about accelerating. Trying to find faster ways to deal with this. Baroness Louise Casey commented on the speed of our cases and we're trying to improve that. 

"We are unduly restricted by the nature of our regulations. That concerns me. It is great that the Home Secretary and Prime Minister have commissioned a rapid review of some of the rules about dismissals and unsatisfactory performance. 

"Regardless of that, we're trying to find other levers where we can stretch the existing use of the law a bit further and push the boundaries to go as fast as possible.

"To conclude. You will see progress from us step by step as we chase More Trust, Less Crime and High Standards. We must improve dramatically for London. But lifting the stone reveals painful truths that will not be resolved overnight. I must not pretend they will be and I hope you understand that can't be done.

"We have to prepare for more painful stories as we confront the issues that we face. We've discussed before the systemic failings that create these problems, of these officers who corrupt our integrity.

"As we put in more resource, more assertive tactics, as we're more open to people reporting incidents to us both from within the organisation and from the public, and as we more determinedly take on these cases, it will tackle the problems we face. But it won't be rapid and it will be painful.

"In that context, we need your support and the support of the people of London. Please don't lose heart as we confront these issues and as we do this necessary and painful work to finally rid the organisation of those who corruption our integrity."