A retired Asian officer who fought racism in the police has been cleared of sexually assaulting a prisoner almost 30 years ago after claiming the charges against him were part of a vendetta by Scotland Yard.
A jury took 50 minutes on Friday to acquit former Det Sgt Gurpal Virdi of all charges over the incident which was alleged to have happened in 1986. The trial judge, His Honor Judge Andrew Goymer, said a conspiracy may have been behind the case against Virdi.
Virdi alleged the case was brought to destroy his reputation and to punish him for speaking out. He told the Guardian a section of the Met had a “licence” to act as it wanted and had brought the case as part of a vendetta spanning 17 years.
Speaking from his home in west London, Virdi said: “The Met has not moved on, it’s going backwards.”
He added: “It’s the same department, the directorate of professional standards, they’ve always been after me since 1998 and the employment tribunal. That department is a cancer of racism that needs to be cut out and nobody has the courage to do it.”
Virdi said a particularly vicious element was the allegation he had sexually assaulted a minor: “It was done to keep me quiet and then to make me look bad in the community, and people did avoid me. It was meant to destroy me.”
He said his case documents disappeared and that his experience was similar to that of PC Carol Howard who won an employment tribunal for race discrimination against the Met, during which it emerged that reports damaging to the Met had been deleted.
Virdi said: “It’s still the ongoing campaign against me, as it has been, since 1998. It just shows that all the reports done into racism and fairness, are ignored. Senior officers provide lip service, recommendations are not implemented and some people have a licence to do want they want in the Met.”
Virdi has won two employment tribunal cases against the Metropolitan police, one after he claimed to have been framed by colleagues, and the other after claiming to have been victimised.
The way the Met has treated him is one of the most high-profile cases against its record on race. Virdi believes he has been hounded for 17 years because he spoke out about racism within the force, which it claims to be committed to tackling.
In the latest case he was charged with indecent assault of a prisoner and misconduct in public office after an incident nearly 30 years ago in south London when he detained a young person. Virdi was alleged to have racially abused the black prisoner and to have prodded him in the anus with a collapsable baton while in the back of a police van.
Originally Virdi was charged with attacking a minor only for the Met to realise the alleged victim was over 16 at the time of the incident. The collapsable batton Virdi was alleged to have had was not being used at the time by the Met police.
During the trial at Southwark crown court, Virdi alleged that police tried to discredit him after he gave evidence to the 1998 Stephen Lawrence inquiry about racism within the force.
He told jurors: “This is a typical reaction from a department that has hounded me since 1998, investigating me and following me around and bugging my phone. Doing all sorts of things.”
His barrister, Henry Blaxland QC, told the jury: “It is hardly surprising if Gurpal Virdi believes that he is the victim of a conspiracy to frame him. It is hardly surprising if he sees some ulterior motive …”
After the verdict, Virdi’s solicitor, Matt Foot, called for an inquiry into why the case had been brought on such flimsy evidence: “It’s absolutely disgraceful that he has had to go through this. I believe if it had been somebody else, other than Gurpal Virdi, they would not have been prosecuted.
“He feels he has been further hounded by the Met because he stood up to racism in the police force.”
Virdi’s treatment by the Met first came to public attention in 1998 after he was arrested, had his home searched and was suspended. The detective sergeant at a west London station was accused of sending racist hate mail to himself and other ethnic minority officers.
In March 2000 a police discipline panel found against the Sikh officer and he was dismissed in disgrace, his claims of racism passed off as spurious allegations from a discredited chancer.
But in August 2000 an employment tribunal found the force had racially discriminated against Virdi, and in February 2002 he received an apology. He received £240,000 in compensation and returned to work.
In 2007 an employment tribunal found that the Met had victimised Virdi again by refusing him promotion in 2005 because he had previously won a race discrimination case against the force. The tribunal did not uphold a claim of racial discrimination.
Speaking after that case, Virdi told the Guardian: “If you challenge the organisation you are a marked man.”
The jury heard Virdi’s supervisor, Graham Markwick, in a character reference say: “He was the last person I would have expected to be violent. He was perfectly able to deal with other members of our diverse community. He took our work seriously and did things by the book. He was thorough and reliable.”
Blaxland also told the jury: “He [Virdi] has a history of confronting racist conduct at not inconsiderable personal cost. His report to the Stephen Lawrence inquiry specifically made the point that black people are more likely to be stopped and charged.”
Virdi retired in 2012 and was due to stand as a local councillor for Labour but the party dropped him after he was charged. He was elected as an independent.
Virdi told jurors how these latest criminal allegations were made last year, shortly before the council elections. “This is a couple of months before the local elections and I have been arrested again and accused of a horrendous crime.”
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fiona Taylor, of the directorate of professional standards at the Met, said: “Once allegations such as these were raised by the victim it was only right that we investigated them thoroughly and impartially.
“That investigation was entirely focused on securing what evidence was available, with respect to what were undeniably very serious allegations. It would not have been proper to proceed in any other way.
“We presented the evidence to the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] who decided the allegations and evidence should be heard by a jury.”