The decision was a victory for Supt Robyn Williams, who the Met sacked and then had to reinstate after a tribunal ruled force leaders had been wrong to take her job. Williams was fired in 2020 for gross misconduct, following a criminal conviction for possessing child abuse images unsolicited to her in a WhatsApp chat group. That conviction led to her dismissal from the Met at a disciplinary hearing chaired by a senior Met officer, despite pleas from many in the police force that Williams was a role model who should keep her job. In June 2021, the Police Appeal Tribunal (PAT) overturned the Met’s decision, saying the force had acted unfairly in sacking her. The court said that a final written warning would be fairer because this was an exceptional case. Despite this, the Met went to the high court to insist it was right in its decision to sack Williams and in a decision made public on Tuesday, Britain’s biggest force lost yet another high court case – having spent tens of thousands of pounds of public money . Ms Justice Heather Williams rejected the Met’s arguments. On a claim that the officer’s conviction meant she must have been dishonest, the high court judge languished: “The allegation that the PAT failed to address Supt Williams’ dishonesty in advancing a false defense as an aggravating factor is hopeless. The PAT said in its paragraph 39 that it took this into account as an aggravating factor. Supt Williams, 57, won praise for her work after the Grenfell fire in 2017, when relations between the traumatized community and the authorities were fraught with tension. She has campaigned for more women in the police and won the Queen’s Police Medal during her 37-year career. In her judgment, Ms Justice Williams wrote: “The PAT concluded that, due to the unique circumstances of the conviction, the stellar career of the officer, the substantial impact he had on enhancing the reputation of MPS as a whole and the appreciation that her dismissal would reduce confidence in the police in some of the communities in which the MPS has struggled to win trust. That was a permissible conclusion for him to reach.” The Met said: “We will now take time to carefully consider the judgments and any next steps.” Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Janet Hills, former president of the Metropolitan Black Police Association, said the force must now end its pursuit of Williams and doing so was a litmus test of whether it could be reformed. “There has to come a time when an organization like the Met has to take stock and reflect,” Hills said. “The Met must admit it was wrong and deal with Williams and her family. If the new commissioner is serious about building bridges with the black community, then this is where he should start.” The case began in February 2018 after Williams received a WhatsApp message from her sister containing a video of a young woman being abused. The sister was furious and wanted the culprit to be hunted down by the police. Williams never played the video, but a jury convicted her after prosecutors said she failed to report it because she feared doing so would get her sister in trouble. Her sister sent the abuse video to a WhatsApp group of 17 people, one of whom reported it to the police. Williams was the only one of the 17 to stand trial.
