Thames Valley police don’t understand racism

What workplace, in particular a senior workforce, does not understand that putting a monkey doll on the only Black worker’s desk to indicate that she should make tea for her colleagues is racist?

Well, a specially convened panel for Thames Valley police didn’t think so.

A Thames Valley disciplinary panel concluded that a counter-terrorism officer was not being racist when he put a monkey toy on a black colleague's desk.

A counter-terrorism officer, Det Sgt Andrew Mottau, was cleared of gross misconduct, after the Black officer complained that by putting the monkey toy on her desk she felt "shocked and offended”.

In his successful defence, the panel agreed that it was used innocently.

This outcome is extremely worrying and clearly demonstrates that Thames Valley police cannot even begin to understand how racism and intimidation is played on a daily insidious basis that grinds down the targeted individual.

Let’s first give the senior officer the benefit of the doubt: that between his white colleagues they used the toy to indicate who has to make the tea- all innocent. When it applies to a Black person, didn’t he or any of the other officers think, ‘you know what, let’s not do this to our Black colleague because it might appear offensive. Or if we do let’s ask first, if it’s ok.'

The other shocking element of this case is the fact that these are not police students, untrained in diversity or racism. Sgt Mottau is a very senior officer working in counter terrorism. Surely this is one of the police departments, which above all must clearly understand the nuances of race relations; their job depends upon it.

And yet it seems both he and the force are either blindly ignorant, or refuse to accept the blindingly obvious. I’m not sure which one is worse, but I do feel for the brave Black officer, who confronted crude racism, and was bitterly let down. How does she now carry on working with her colleagues in the canteen racist culture?

Not a good for police race relations, and certainly not a good advert that demonstrated Thames Valley police understand racism.

Simon Woolley