Mina Smallman: ‘The police suffer from a crisis of moral leadership – it’s a culture which attracts predators’
Yesterday (Monday, December 6) both men were sentenced to two years, nine months in jail after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office. In her first full newspaper interview since either trial, Smallman says the ordeal has left her suffering with post traumatic stress disorder, her emotions oscillating wildly from numbness to denial to screaming out for her murdered children in her sleep.
“There is this desire I will be able to put that to bed and really take on the fact they have gone,” the 65-year-old says. “To finally not try and put on a brave face.”
That said, Smallman intends to continue campaigning in memory of her daughters and exposing the “endemic toxic culture” within the police who failed her family at every turn. She says she would like to meet the two now former officers – whom she refers to as “Despicable One and Despicable Two” – to seek restorative justice and has asked the police to make an approach.
“It’s important to me they understand sorry is not enough,” she says. “I want to know that they feel a sense of shame.”
After holding off for many months, she has also publicly called for the resignation of Metropolitan Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick. Following the publication of the IOPC report last month,
Dame Cressida issued an apology to the family and offered to meet Smallman – an invitation she has declined.
“Her main role through all of this has been to protect the brand,” she says. “Where was her humanity?”
“Part of the job is about upholding moral standards but from what we are seeing coming out, that isn’t going on,” she says. “There is racism, misogyny, sexism – awful crimes. I just think more is going to come out.”
As she points out: “Because the culture has been allowed to flourish, it has attracted predators.”
