Met officers accused of racist Markle messages

Three Metropolitan police officers exchanged racist messages on a WhatsApp group, including a comparison between Meghan Markle and a g*******, a tribunal heard.

- THOMAS KINGSLEY

PC Sukhdev Jeer and PC Paul Hefford, along with former officer Richard Hammond, also failed to challenge and/or report the other members of the group after receiving the offensive messages, it is claimed. The allegations amount to gross misconduct, which will result in the officers being sacked if the allegations are proven.

Giving an idea of the kind of messages shared, Vishal Misra of the Metropolitan police said: "All of the content in the log is submitted to be explicitly racist, homophobic, sexist, ableist and Islamaphobic." He added: "All of the respondents failed to challenge one another with regards to the content being posted."

The panel heard that PC Jeer posted an image of a young boy in a hoodie captioned as a "monkey in the jungle" and superimposed with an image of a penis. Vishal Misra quizzed PC Jeer about a meme that showed the image of a "g****** toy that was captioned: "A sneak preview at Meghan's wedding dress." ****"