Inside Britain's DEI police force

Andrew*, a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, is telling me about a former trainee. “Before they join, direct-entry detectives are sold the whole Line of Duty bollocks,” he says. “They think they’ll be chasing gangsters. Then we dump them in an office and give them 40 GBHs, frauds and sexual assaults to deal with.” That’s what normally happens — but Andrew’s colleague was neurodiverse. This allowed her to get “reasonable adjustments” under the Equality Act, meaning she only had to investigate a single case at a time. What about the other 39 crimes the average detective deals with? “The rest of her team took them on,” Andrew says. The rookie’s staff association even argued she couldn’t be put in situations where she might be surprised. “That is obviously a problem for a detectiv