London, Jan.18 (ANI): Brit Sikh detective sergeant Gurpal Virdi is suing the Metropolitan Police Force for the fifth time after he was passed over for promotion to inspector.
His lawyers will argue that privately the Met still believes he is guilty of sending racist e-mails to his colleagues, despite two independent tribunals clearing him nine years ago.
The claim will feature in a case brought by a high profile Asian detective involved in the longest running discrimination dispute within the Met.
According to The Times, a watchdog has launched an inquiry into whether the Metropolitan Police department responsible for improving the recruitment and retention of ethnic officers is shredding damaging documents about the selection process.
The Met has already admitted to the employment tribunal that the notes taken by Virdi’s promotion panel last year were “shredded in error.”
The Sikh detective told The Sunday Times: “I am the Colin Stagg of the Met [referring to the man wrongly accused of killing the model Rachel Nickell in 1992]. Everyone knows I’m innocent and the Met are not accepting it. It would appear that senior people have something to hide. The commissioner needs to hold people to account rather than cover up”.
The Black Police Assocation, which has boycotted ethnic recruitment to the Met, is supporting Virdi.
Further pressure has come from another influential staff association that represents 2,200 inspectors and chief inspectors.
Mark Crake, general secretary of the Inspectors Branch Board, says he has direct evidence that the shredding goes beyond the Virdi case.
In a statement, the Met denied it was getting rid of the evidence.
It said: “That is simply ridiculous, electronic copies of all documents remain as a matter of public record. Hard copies were destroyed so they could not be duplicated.’
His employment tribunal will be heard next month on the tenth anniversary of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which found the Met to be “institutionally racist.” (ANI)
