Northern Police Monitoring Project
23/10/2025
The Panorama documentary Undercover in the Police (released on 1 October 2025) offered a glimpse into the racism, misogyny, violence and abuse that pervades policing in Britain. Filmed undercover at Charing Cross Police Station, the programme examined whether the Metropolitan Police had changed since the Casey Review of 2023, which found the force to be institutionally racist and sexist. The footage showed officers expressing explicitly racist, xenophobic and misogynistic views, laughing and bragging about inflicting violence on people, and talking about falsifying reports—conversations and actions that are usually hidden from public view. These exchanges were often not only unchallenged, but met with laughter, encouragement and complicity.
Whilst many viewers found the revelations shocking, for communities most directly affected by the harms of policing and those of us working with them, they are all too familiar. Since the documentary aired, the BBC has reported that more than 300 people have come forward with allegations of racism, misogyny, corruption and bullying of victims by the police. Those living under the daily reality of policing—alongside grassroots organisations and campaigners—have long documented exactly these harms. Official reviews, from Macpherson in 1999 to Casey in 2023, have merely confirmed what communities have said for decades: racism, sexism, and abuse are not isolated incidents, but systemic features of policing.
Whilst he refused to accept that the Met was institutionally racist in response to the Casey Review in 2023, Sir Mark Rowley, the chief of the Met police force, has nonetheless acknowledged after the documentary that “clearly there is racism, there’s misogyny. There’s relishing in using excess force”. The response to the Panorama revelations was swift but predictably superficial. Within 48 hours of the documentary’s broadcast, the Metropolitan Police had referred the matter to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). Nine officers and one member of staff were suspended, and two others were removed from frontline duties. The IOPC has since served gross misconduct notices to nine officers, one retired officer and a staff member, and is investigating 11 individuals in total—including one officer under criminal investigation.
Yet these measures will not solve the problem. This is not simply about a few “rogue officers” or “bad apples”, nor even one particularly toxic police station, as the documentary has often been framed. It is the inevitable product of a rotten system. Focusing solely on individuals—or treating this as an isolated local issue—serves to obscure the bigger picture: institutional and systemic racism, misogyny and abuse are the very foundations on which British policing has been built.
The Panorama programme offered the public a rare glimpse behind the veil, into a deeply toxic culture—but over-policed communities have been living with these realities for decades. Here in Greater Manchester, we know these issues all too well. In the days surrounding the broadcast, reports emerged that a senior Greater Manchester Police officer had shared misogynistic and degrading images of a new female colleague. Weeks later, four GMP officers—two sergeants and two constables—were found to have a case to answer for gross misconduct over allegations that they used, or failed to challenge, discriminatory and offensive language. In the past year alone, forty-three GMP officers have been removed from the force. These examples are just the visible tip of an iceberg, a reactive gesture intended to repudiate the problem rather than confront its roots.
These are just the latest in a long line of incidents. There were many before, and there will be many after. This is not exceptional behaviour—it is the pattern. From stop and search and everyday harassment to police killings, Greater Manchester’s communities continue to face profound harm from the police. And with the force now expanding its use of live facial recognition technology, the risks of racial profiling, over-surveillance and discrimination are set to deepen still further.
Policing poses a profound threat to our communities. What is needed is not tinkering around the edges, but a fundamental overhaul: one that rolls back police powers and transfers functions that could be carried out more safely and effectively by other agencies out of police control. Our communities deserve safety, support and care—not institutions that routinely harm us.