Met Police apologises for racially stereotyping people of Turkish heritage

The Metropolitan Police has apologised over its training material which appeared to "racially stereotype" people of Turkish heritage.

Scotland Yard said it “misjudged the wider impact” of a case study in the material, which had been “designed by educational professionals”.

A Turkish Muslim man was the subject of the case study where he was a ‘racist, drug-dealing Turkish gangster, murderer and rapist’ with graphic details of the crimes he was committing.

The crimes included murdering a ‘Chinese man’ using a ‘Gurkha knife’, assaulting and raping his ‘Indian Hindu girlfriend’ in front of their 13-year-old daughter, and forcing the woman to eat beef despite knowing it was against her faith while seeking to justify his criminal behaviour under ‘Sharia law’, T-Vine reported, referring to the case study.

He was also said to racially abuse his Greek Cypriot neighbours, and tip their disabled son from his wheelchair “for a laugh,” the report said.

Haringey and Enfield Council Leaders Peray Ahmet and Nesil Caliskan - both of Turkish Cypriot origin - reacted to the case study, describing it as “negative racial stereotyping of people of Turkish heritage”.

In a tweet, Fiona Hamilton, the crime and security editor of The Times, said last month that lecturers complained it was full of racial tropes.

Met Police said it was “very sorry” that it caused upset. The force said, “we would like to apologise to all communities and directly to the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot communities who have been affected.”

“We have heard from many members of the community and have met with the Turkish Police Association and other Staff Associations who represent and work with community members and our colleagues across the Met,” it said

The force also clarified that the training materials were designed by educational professionals to meet specific learning objectives.

“However, we clearly misjudged the wider impact of this material on this occasion. As soon as we received feedback, the case study was amended and we have taken steps to ensure that this amended version is applied consistently across all our Universities,” the Met Police said.

Scotland Yard said it would now be standard practice to put all new training material through its Learning and Development Community Reference Group.