Originally released on Evening Wiki, Alice Vinten, an ex-Metropolitan Police officer of 11 years, has produced evidence of long-term harassment by a large group of serving Metropolitan Police officers as a result of her exposing of sexist cultures and practices inside the force.
UPDATE (07/09/23): A petition has now been started to ask the Met to take actions against officers harassing women who expose misogyny in the force.
Several times in recent years, Alice Vinten has spoken openly about the behavior of her former colleagues in the press. She came out to say that her coworkers believed that “99% of rape cases were regretful sex, and that women would cheat and claim it was rape to get out of it.”
During her career, officers would exchange intimate images of their girlfriends despite the fact they were sent them in confidence. She described a sexist police force in which her colleagues forced her to view violent pornography, attractive female members of the public had their locations shared over police radios, and male officers attempted to follow female coworkers home.
“If you had asked me while I worked for the Met whether it was institutionally sexist, I would have defended it to the hilt. It’s only once you’re out, once you have distance from the beast that is the institution, that you can finally see it clearly.” She added.
Vinten recently revealed that a serving police officer, PC Thomas Karlsen, 22, who served in Wandsworth, Richmond, Merton, and Kingston, was using Twitter to ‘bully’ the public. Karlsen expressed sexist views on social media, arguing that women had “victim mentalities.”
As a serving officer, he used his account to call members of the public “snide c****,” asked them to “stop using the race card,” and called women “vindictive little s*****” and “bigger c****.” Despite being an ex-officer, Vinten believed his actions would weaken public trust in the police, so she called him and asked him to stop targeting the public in this manner.
In reaction, the now-disgraced officer ‘launched a harassment campaign’ against Vinten, which he concedes was solely “retaliation.” Vinten’s home location was then made public on Twitter, as were her children’s full legal names, and malicious complaints were filed with her current, part-time employer. Other Metropolitan police officers affiliated with Karlsen are said to have participated in this effort.
Karlsen describes the harassment as a campaign designed to pressure and intimidate Vinten into dropping her complaint.
While Karlsen and his colleagues were engaging in this harassment and actively tweeting abusive content, one of the accounts in question began to be followed by Dame Lynne Owens, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Vinten reached out to her for help, and she allegedly dishonestly said she did not follow the account in question.
Vinten made a formal complaint, and the Met answered on April 21, 2023 – more than a year later, while he continued to Tweet in this manner and Vinten continued to face harassment – and they said a misconduct hearing featuring Karlsen will take place.
We have attached formal correspondence pertaining to the complaints process.
At the time, Alice said the following: “All I wanted at the beginning of this was for him to think about what he was posting and how it reflected on policing and impacted victims. I wish he would have reflected on that. It would have ended at individual learning, but now he is facing a misconduct hearing. This type of persistent arrogance and untouchability must be wiped out of the force.”
However, the ‘bully’ went on to attack a member of the public in astonishing developments. On Tuesday, June 27, Karlsen was charged with Actual Bodily Harm at Westminster Magistrates’ Court for initiating a “vicious attack” on a member of the public while attending to a domestic disturbance.
Karlsen entered a guilty plea and admitting to striking, kicking, and using PAVA in close proximity. We predict that sentencing will take place within a month.
Upon hearing of Karlsen’s guilty plea at court, Vinten said the following: “If the Met had listened to me nearly two years ago when I told them he was an abusive bully then maybe this assault wouldn’t have happened.”
The refusal to respond to Vinten’s complaint in a timely manner several years ago, echoes the Baroness Casey Review, where it was determined that the Met “sees scrutiny as an unwelcome intrusion”. The famed review describes a policing body too closely associated with injustice, a brazen disregard for protocol, and a judge, jury, and executioner power dynamic, swamped in toxic attitudes and practices.
“This pack of bullies”
Vinten recounts and provides evidence that she has received many death threats, that her home location has been widely disclosed on social media, that malicious complaints have been submitted in large quantities to her current employer, and that she has been subjected to long-term social media harassment.
Detective Constable Joanne Farrell, a serving Metropolitan Police Officer who joined in 2014, is accused of spearheading a gang of officers initiating the ‘campaign of harassment’ against Vinten.
A whistleblower inside the organization revealed private conversations they would exchange. Farell would allegedly use a Twitter account – that has since been disabled (today) when Vinten claimed she had a whistleblower within their group – to cause Vinten alarm and distress in retaliation for openly criticizing the Met and specific officers.
The group would also create new accounts if they were blocked to continue the harassment against Vinten.
One member of the public had the following to say about the whole ordeal: “These people are not fit to be police officers. Some are sergeants and Inspectors. Very brave behind a anon account but quickly delete accounts when they will be found out.”
Another said the following: “Why are there SO many rotten apples in the British police services these days? I see new accounts of police officers caught for despicable acts reported EVERY day on X (Twitter). It should not be like this – surely even one rotten apple is too many.”
Vinten has said she will take her case to the Independent Office of Police Conduct as she is dissatisfied with how police forces have handled her reports.
