Across all England’s regions, a study out in the journal Policing & Society spotlights London’s Metropolitan Police as the area where women trust the least.

• Women living in London trust the police less than in anywhere in the UK

• Across England, confidence lowest among women and ethnic minorities

• Tory voters more trusting of police

Researchers surveyed more than 8,000 men and women between July 2022 and September 2023 and found women generally trust police more than men.

But among the nine English regions surveyed, compared with men, women’s trust is at its lowest in London.

It comes after a 2023 investigation triggered by outrage at the rape, abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, uncovered hundreds of other incidents of violence against women by serving Metropolitan Police Officers.

Trust in the police is crucial for a stable society, but it’s not the same for everyone. Some feel safer than others depending on factors like age, race, income, politics and past brushes with the law.

Older people have higher levels of trust in the police, researchers found, while ethnic minority people have significantly lower levels of trust.

People from ethnic minorities living in the North East trusted police markedly less than anywhere else in England.

Country-wide, average levels of trust in the police were highest in the East Midlands, South East and South West and lowest in London, the North East and North West.

And Conservative voters and people living in Tory constituencies also have significantly higher levels of trust than non-Conservatives.

Baroness Casey’s report highlights poor recruitment, vetting and management in the Met and researchers think they may have had a different result if they’d done the same study a decade earlier.

The study goes on to question whether Metropolitan Police leaders and the Mayor of London accept that the force has a problem with women.

Main Image: By Stanislav Kozlovskiy – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37526322

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