Met chief says PC's award marred by racist abuse

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has condemned the "vile" racist abuse directed at a female Muslim police officer who was awarded for supporting women in policing.

PC Fiona Shaik Umar was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Women in Policing Award at the Police Federation annual conference on Wednesday.

But Sir Mark told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that Umar's achievement had been met with an "online tirade" of racist and misogynistic abuse.

"The federation put out this really positive thing about this award, and the online tirade of vileness, of racist, anti-Islam and all sorts of other abuse, and misogynistic, was horrific," he said.

"I mean, the stuff out there is just vile."

Sir Mark said female officers, and those from minority ethnic backgrounds, are more likely to suffer online abuse.

He added that the same was true for women MPs, nodding to Umar's role as an operational officer working to protect parliamentarians who face abuse and threats.

"This is a vile world to be a public servant in," Sir Mark said.

Umar was commended by the federation for leading the development of the Hijab Project, through which new uniform options were introduced to meet the needs of Muslim women officers.

Reacting to receiving the award in a video shared on X by the Metropolitan Police Federation, Umar said: "I'm truly humbled to receive this award because I'm super passionate about the work I do around representation and inclusion for women in policing.

"I never thought about a career in the police until my daughter at the time said to me, 'Can women like you do that job?', and I was really offended because obviously she'd never seen anyone who looked like me being a police officer, and it's because of that that I have continued to do this work and to try and create a space for women who look like me in policing across the UK."

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