The Metropolitan Police is looking worse by the day.

Back in 2011 –

Kristina O’Connor, now 33, called 101 after being attacked by a group of men who tried to steal her phone. When she was interviewed about the mugging by Detective Chief Inspector James Mason, who later became a right-hand man to Cressida Dick, the Met commissioner, he instead turned the conversation towards her love life and asked her out for dinner.

In emails sent from his official account, Mason, 43, then a detective sergeant, told her he was as “determined in my pursuit of criminals as I am of beautiful women”. Describing her as “amazingly hot”, he said that rejection of an officer’s advances was “frowned upon”.

What an interesting concept. It means that reporting a crime, for women, entails a risk of rape, and not just rape but rape you can’t report to the police because it’s a police who raped you. If the victim is not allowed to “reject an officer’s advances” then that officer is free to rape the victim. I had no idea this was official Met policy.

After her complaint, Mason, who received a commendation for resilience and professionalism in his handling of the response to the Westminster Bridge terrorist attack, was found guilty at a hearing last year of gross misconduct that was sexually motivated. He kept his job and rank and still serves in the Met.

And that’s why she’s now suing them.

The force has faced heavy criticism since PC Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, 33, last March. Last month the academic Dr Koshka Duff was paid compensation after she was strip-searched by Met officers, with others laughing as they said: “What’s that smell? Oh, it’s her knickers.” Last week the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) found that officers at the Met’s Charing Cross branch had joked in messages about rape, domestic violence and killing black children.

Hur hur, smelly knickers, you’re not allowed to say no to the police, hur hur.

Interesting plot twist:

Her legal case, supported by the Good Law Project, which has taken on the Met for its initial failure to investigate the No 10 parties, also names Mason and the IOPC as interested parties.

So Jolyon can get something right.