Working for the Directorate of Professional Standards - Domestic Abuse and Sexual Offences Unit

DC Zoe Di Carlo works in the specialist Domestic Abuse and Sexual Offences investigation unit, one of the teams that have been tasked with investigating information that the public share via the brand-new Anti-Corruption and Abuse hotline run by Crimestoppers.

Zoe gives an insight into the challenges of dealing with the complex world of police misconduct regulations and what motivates her team on a daily basis as they delve deep into accusations made against their own colleagues.

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I think people still do have that level of innate trust in police, so when people hear that an officer is committing sexual offences or is helping a member of public then actually going home and being really abusive to his family, it's more shocking somehow.?

Seeing some of the awful stories about officers that emerged in the press, I think it tainted everyone’s view. Especially when talking to a lot of my female friends in the job, people were like ‘this is just unbelievable’, or you might hear about an officer you knew...you’d think ‘not again, this has to stop’. That was a motivation, and it helps morale a bit because here, you feel like you're actually involved in trying to tackle it. At least then if people say to you, I'm losing faith in the police, you have a place in the conversation where you can say, actually, we are literally doing everything we can.

There's a lot to get your head round, a lot of pressure, a lot of training. You look around and people are passionate about their jobs, they bend over backwards to work late or volunteer to do extra days to get things moving. They are desperate to get rid of people who shouldn't be here.

Yes, it can be hard to see a fellow officer arrested, to take their warrant card from them and think they might not get that back, but you have to put aside the fact that they might be brilliant at work in a lot of ways, or they might have three kids at home, because it's not really relevant to the actual investigation side of it. On the flip side, just because they're a police officer, that doesn't mean they're not entitled to a fair investigation.

I always stress to people this unit wasn't created to act as a witch hunt. If you're a good person and you're a good police officer, you're fine. People just need to not overthink it, come forward if they feel concerned and have the faith that we will get to the truth, whatever that might turn out to be.

We really do need the public's help in tackling corrupt officers and staff. I think for them, reporting a police officer full stop probably seems quite difficult. They might have a perception that either they'll get a slap on the wrist, or they won't get believed, or nothing will happen, so what's the point? But we want them to know we truly feel the onus is on us to tackle this problem, we have dedicated investigators here waiting who will take any information they report seriously.?

The Metropolitan Police Anti-Corruption and Abuse Hotline | Crimestoppers (crimestoppers-uk.org)