For me luis will be here at the top of the arrow with all the days news. But now on bbc news is time for hardtalk with the stephen sackur. Welcome to hardtalk. Im stephen sackur. The sense of systemic Racial Injustice in policing that has fuelled the black lives Matter Movement is shared far beyond the shores of the united states. In britain, it is two decades since a top level inquiry into londons police force found it to be institutionally racist. How much has really changed . Well, my guest, leroy logan, was one of londons top black policeman until he retired, seven years ago. How easy is it to root out discrimination dressed in a Police Uniform . Leroy logan, welcome to hardtalk. Thank you very much for the invitation. Its great to be here. Well, we are delighted to have you, not least because you have written a fascinating memoir, and youve entitled it closing ranks my life as a cop, so its pretty clear what its about. You talk about your decision to join the police force many, many years ago as what you say as a calling. You make it sound like some sort of religious commitment as a young man that you made to policing. Well, it had to be as strong as that, because my career path after my science degree was to be a clinical researcher at the Royal Free Hospital and possibly going into medicine, so i was very clear on my career path, and then this strong sort of unquenchable voice just kept on resonating. I was questioning my sanity. Why would i want to do policing, having experienced so much during the days of the 70s . And i saw how my father, a Long Distance driver, how he would be harassed by police. To be clear, you were brought up in a not very well off black family. Your parents moved to london from jamaica, and you, as a kid, saw that it was a pretty tough life being a black kid on the streets of inner london, and not least a tough life in terms of relationships with the police. Absolutely. I mean, it even happened when i went to go to school and i would come out after band practice with my trumpet and my satchel and i would still get stopped. What are you doing now . Whats in this trumpet case . Er, a trumpet . You know, these sort of things i found really challenging, and my father used to stand up for me and for himself when he got stopped by police. And unfortunately, he was a victim of a savage beating by police when i was actually in the process ofjoining, so you can imagine how i felt. No way am i going to be a cop after all of this because of how my hero, my father, had been savagely beaten over a traffic matter. Well, you say, i can imagine. Actually, i dont think i can imagine. I certainly cannot imagine how you then second guessed yourself, and indeed, probably overcame the suspicion and hostility of notjust the community that you came from, but also your own family, to actually go ahead in the end and sign up and join this force. Why did you do that, despite the deep reservations of your dad, amongst others . Well, even though he successfully sued the met for Excessive Force and unlawful arrest, he was still there supporting me. But how he found out was the worst thing. Because i had applied behind him even knowing it, because officers id spoken to who used to work in hampstead, used to use the facilities at the royal free, sort of gave me the human side of policing, and then when i was doing my degree, i saw a black officer in the 70s and it resonated with me. And i remember as a child injamaica, i spent a few years at Primary School stage injamaica, and i saw black officers, black teachers, black prime ministers and i thought, actually, policing can be my calling. Did friends and even some family call you a sell out . Absolutely. If you ever want to reduce a Christmas Card list by 90 , join the met. Be a black young man and join the metropolitan police. Because i was called judas, a sell out, i said i dont know what ive sold out. I said very clearly, im a black man who happens to be a cop so that means i integrate into the organisation with my beliefs and values. Im not going to assimilate into norms and values of the culture. Its a long time now since you did that training at the Police School in hendon, and then as a young beat officer, you joined the police on the streets of london. How painful is it now, as youve done in the book and as you probably will have to do with me, to recall some of the racism that you experienced . Im not thinking of racism from people on the streets, but im thinking of racism inside your own team. 0h, absolutely. I would get monkey noises on the radio, i even remember a massive n word in upper case on my locker. And its in a secure area, so it couldnt be. It was. It had to be a team member. Policemen or women who had done it. Absolutely, and it wasnt a member of the public. And did you report it . Was it investigated . Yeah, well, they said they investigated but i didnt see anyone being spoken to, i didnt get any sort of feedback. Because in those days, casual racism and overt racism not necessarily directed at me, but at members of the public who looked like me were always part of their narrative. How close did you come to walking away as a young Police Officer . Many times. Some would say that perhaps that would be the move with the greatest amount of integrity behind it, to actually say ive seen now inside the system. It is so rotten, it is so bad for my people in particular, but so bad for Race Relations in london that i will not be any sort of token or fig leaf covering up what is going on. I thought that many times. But i also saw what was bad in the met could easily be solved by whats good in it. Theres some great people in the met a majority of people want to serve all members of the public, regardless of background. But, with respect, thats not true, is it, leroy . Because you through the 80s and 90s served in a period when policing in london was we now can say with absolute assurance systemically, institutionally racist, and we can say that because after the terrible racist murder of Young Stephen lawrence back in 1993, there was ultimately a full Public Inquiry and that was the conclusion that the lead of that inquiry, william macpherson, reached, institutional racism, and you are in there all of that time. And i gave evidence to macpherson to say as one of the three members of the bpa black Police Association that they were institutionally racist. But the thing is. But then you go home, take your salary, you are on the beat the next day i dare say with a mix of emotionally white officers and probably seeing things the very next day and that after that that disturb you and your conscience, but what did you do about it . I had to stand in the midst. You know, you are not going to steer a ship from the shore. Youve going to be on board, in the captains cabin, changing the direction. And we in the black Police Association saw an opportunity especially after macpherson to own the recommendations of the internal Recruitment Retention progression, as well as the external delivery to the black community. In this fascinating book, what strikes me what you dont do is you dont ever describe an incident where you felt personally compromised in your policing on the streets of london when faced with perhaps a racially charged situation. Are you saying that never happened . Of course it happened so what did you do . I challenge people so, you know, there is no way officers especially when i was a supervisor they could mistreat people. And i had to report people where they were inappropriate. What i would like to do is spot it before it becomes a problem, put them on a development plan, even assist them with on the job training. I had to show ethical leadership. I had to speak truth to power, even at that Grassroots Level with officers. Because i used to say to them every time you have a encounter with a member of the public, thats a potential witness for a crime you have to investigate. But were officers that you worked closely with out and out racist, some of them . Some of them had some real strong views because, unfortunately, the police does attract certain people with those very intolerant views, and the culture develops it in a way that it becomes the norm. So it was a cultural thing, and that is why we had to ensure, through the macpherson inquiry, we break into that culture. On a personal level, im just thinking of you as a young man, you marry, you have a family, you are living your life, and you are also undergoing this extraordinary career which is, as weve already touched upon, so full of challenge and stress. You say in the book i knew that joining the police and being a policeman would set two worlds my personal life and my professional life on a collision course. Is that how it felt . Absolutely. You couldnt easily marry having a decent personal life and living this life as a black policeman in london . What i found that even though it was a collision course, i had the anchor of my faith to assist me to navigate through that. Even when i was involved in the Damilola Taylor investigation and i brought in a cadre of black officers to assist. Just reminding people the Damilola Taylor case, which came years after the horrible racist murder of Stephen Lawrence it was a different case, because this was a young black boy who was killed and it wasnt a racist attack in the case of Damilola Taylor, but it was a tragic case of a young black boy in the wrong place at the wrong time who, it seems, was attacked by people with a gang affiliation who just didnt like his presence on their patch at that particular time. And you are saying that when you investigated that, you applied new tactics, new sort of sensitivity and Smart Policing when it came to dealing with minority communities in london . Absolutely. Because the officers had shared that common experience with the community who had the information, and they wouldnt even open the door to white officers who did house to house inquiries. Once i brought in that team, literally, within hours, they were opening doors, giving information, identifying witnesses and suspects and it eventual assisted in developing that conviction. What i saw, we have to show diversity in action, because thats when officers will really understand the importance of diversity, having a reflective organisation to build bridges with the community and not barriers. But you paint this picture of the Damilola Taylor case representing a sort of a watershed moment with more, sort of, sensitive policing. There was a cultural relations unit set up. You called you labelled it affinity policing the use of black Police Officers who had a knowledge of heritage and history and language, which could reach out to members of the black community in parts of london. All sounds great, but if one looks at the statistics, even in the last decade long after Damilola Taylors case we see that still a black person is five times more likely at least to be stopped by the police than a white counterpart. We see that in every metric for example, of black people in custody, in terms of violent acts and even death in custody, again, a disproportionate number of black people involved. The metrics suggest nothing much has actually changed. And you wouldnt be far wrong from that. U nfortu nately, after the macpherson report was published in february 1999, the Stephen LawrenceSteering Group, which was the independent oversight chaired by jack straw and with neville and doreen lawrence, amongst other people, like myself, used to hold chief constables and the commissions to account because what gets measured gets done. Once that subsequent home secretaries took over and it was finally dissolved in 2009, and then austerity was brought in in 2010, the Steering Group oversight was gone, then chief constables were right there on homework about the recommendations and saying, institutional racism is no longer useful when it was supposed to be an aspiration to improve the internal and external elements of the police force. So Forward Momentum was lost, wasnt . Absolutely. And more importantly, you then lost a lot of officers through austerity especially citizen focused cops, community cops, your safer neighbour teams, your safer schools officers. Those lost connections with the community, and that is why things have gone backwards. So the look and feel of policing in my estimation reminds me of a pre macpherson era. And that. That is a shocking thing to say. It is but. The macpherson report was what, 1999 . Yep. And you are saying that the way you look at the direction of travel today, we seem to be going back to a period before 1999. Yes, absolutely. Its about the leadership of the organisation to address the culture. I think the culture has been hijacked by the extremely aggressive and Intolerant Group of individuals that have taken over the organisation. Thats a much harder organisation the use of handcuffs, even before a stop and account, and stop and search, its creating so much animosity. We have now got barriers, walls of silence, creating barriers that the police have created, and its caused trauma for young people. I want to just tease out then what you think is happening, because you are an advocate now and a campaigner, and you work with a lot of young people in black communities across london. You are also an advocate for, again, Smart Policing. When you hear the chief of the metropolitan police of london today saying that she will not use this phrase institutional racism because she says its no longer helpful, she says, we have zero tolerance of racist behaviour within the met, is that the sort of leadership the met needs . You have to walk the talk. Even now, officers of black and minority ethnic backgrounds are five times more likely to be disciplined than their white counterparts. I myself was investigated for a witch hunt over an £80 hotel bill in the late 90s. So in all honesty, its quite clear that those sort of cases that were still the case 20 odd years ago are still happening now. And then you also see the disproportionality in even section 60 roadblocks. Hang on a minute. 25 times more likely with black than in white to be stopped. And i i, yeah. To be stopped, and aggressively about. I gave some other stats about, you know, the number of stops made on black people as opposed to white people in london and the proportionality there. There is no question, there is a real disproportionality. But the polices response is, theres a disproportionality because there has to be, because we go to where the crime is being committed, and where we most urgently need to protect local populations, and often time in london, the truth is, that is in majority black communities. So thats why the numbers of stop and search are higher, and thats why the number of arrests are higher, and thats why also, it doesnt make sense to criticise the police for that reality. Well, stop and search in leeds is not disproportionately black. You mean yorkshire city of leeds . Absolutely. What it has to be as well, it has to be intelligence led. And a cornerstone of Police Legitimacy is trust. If the communities dont trust you, they dont tell you who to really stop, and thats why even the actual hit rate of how many stops leads to interest, or uncovering a weapon is one in ten. So nine times out of ten, you are harassing the wrong sort of people. And thats whats creating the real animosity between the police and the public. Do you think, its interesting you talk about that, and clearly, tensions exist, and a sense of unfairness exists. You earlier talked about your initiative, you were one of the architects of this black Police Association, its been around for a long time now. There are those within the police and without who argue that having a powerful black Police Association actually exacerbates the sense of differentness of black Police Officers. It does nothing to create a sense that all Police Officers are whether they are white or black utterly committed to nine prejudicial policing. Well, they would say that, wouldnt they . Because even when we were setting up the black Police Association, in ourfirst meetings, actually, in april of 1993, the same month as Stephen Lawrence was killed, they were pushing back saying, you dont need a bpa because we take care of you. Well, if you did, we wouldnt be feeling the need to form so you will work with us as equal partners. And they still dont want to do that now. And they fuel the culture. Thats what creates young people to think, i want nothing to do with the police. I have been running a charity called voyage youth. We set it up 20 years ago through the black Police Association it was called the black Police AssociationCharitable Trust before it was now called voyage. And every year, i do the trust and confidence with those young people and they have always said we feel over policed and under protected. The police disrespect us. This is year nine students, 14 15, looking at developing themselves with their b tech level two that we offer so that they can actually have these points before they start school gcses, year ten, and they are always saying that. That is just a microcosm of the issue, and it is still the case today. And as you say, you are no longer in uniform and you are a community activist. I am very struck by your decision earlier this summer to join a black lives matter protest march in london. Why did you do that . Because i want to identify with that movement. Yeah, but you knew that that could lead to confronta