Met chief warns violence against women needs to be treated like terrorism

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Sir Mark Rowley’s comments came as the mayor of London branded the recruitment of Wayne Couzens and repeated failures to stop him as “one of the most shattering accounts of failure in British policing history”. “It’s a perpetual reminder of why we’re here and the importance of this board.” open image in gallery Sarah Everard was murdered by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens The London Policing Board was established to oversee Met police reform in the wake of Baroness Louise Casey’s review of the Met, which concluded the force was institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic. “I see police reform as a critical part of my mayoralty, and we must not be satisfied until Londoners have the police service they deserve.” In response, Met commissioner Sir Mark said he was “deeply, deeply sorry” to Ms Everard’s loved ones and repeated his comments that the report was an “urgent call for action”. “And we’re making progress by being clever, better organised, but we’re going to need the support of future governments to really build the scale of resource that to deal with this problem across the country that is the same kind of resource that you have proportionately to deal with, say terrorism and organised crime.” His comments come after The Independent revealed at least 350 women have been killed by men in the three years since Ms Everard’s murder.