It is hard to overstate the institutional contempt that underpins the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the case of “Lorraine” — the pseudonym used by the BBC to protect the identity of a woman who spent seven years trying to be heard by the very organisation tasked with keeping her safe. She was groomed by a serving police officer. She was ignored, discredited, and accused of lying by the Met Police. Her mental health was speculated on and reported inaccurately. And it is only now — after years of documented misconduct by the officer in question — that she has received an apology.
I want to emphasise that for centuries, society has treated women’s credibility as contingent, especially if they are emotionally distressed or mentally unwell. It’s a culture that has historically refused to believe women until their suffering becomes undeniable, and often not even then. So this case doesn’t, unfortunately, surprise me, but it does make me want to discuss how women are routinely pathologised to undermine their credibility.
According to the BBC’s reporting, Lorraine met PC Phil Hunter when he was dispatched to her home during a welfare check in 2017. Over the following two years, he sent her inappropriate messages, attempted to alienate her from friends and family, and pursued what a disciplinary panel later described as a “deliberate” and “predatory” plan to begin a sexual relationship. When Lorraine tried to report him, her claims were not recorded. When she persisted, they were minimised. When internal conversations took place about her, they included entirely fabricated assumptions about her mental health.
It took 18 months of repeated attempts for her complaint to even register. And throughout that time, information about her – some of it false, some defamatory – was shared within the force and beyond it, damaging her credibility and framing her as unstable. All of this came to light only after a letter of apology was sent to Lorraine from the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards, as reported by the BBC.
The idea that a woman’s mental health – or even the perception of it – makes her inherently unreliable is not new. Historically, women who challenged male power were labelled with “hysteria”, institutionalised, or subjected to lobotomies. They were dismissed not because their claims lacked evidence, but because they themselves were seen as defective. The impact of those legacies lingers in cases like Lorraine’s.
When a woman reports abuse and is met not with support but with suspicion, she’s being told (implicitly and explicitly) that the abuse is secondary to her perceived irrationality. In Lorraine’s case, police shared false information with social services and her GP. They did not investigate her complaints with any urgency, despite knowing the officer in question was already under scrutiny for misconduct with another vulnerable woman. Even the statement she submitted about her experience was used to support the officer in his first misconduct hearing, rather than as evidence that she was a victim.
There is a cultural instinct to disbelieve women unless they present themselves as entirely stoic and unflinching – or simply palatable. And even then, as we’ve seen, it’s no guarantee. The Met’s own response acknowledged that Lorraine had been subject to “victim-blaming” by multiple officers, but no officer has yet been held accountable for the deliberate sidelining of her complaints.
The idea that the presence of mental health difficulties could justify a lack of investigation should concern everyone. As Lorraine herself pointed out in the BBC’s report, it’s precisely those with vulnerabilities who are more likely to be targeted by predators. It should follow that allegations from vulnerable people warrant more care, not less. But in practice, the opposite remains true.
The ease with which institutions undermine women’s credibility by questioning their emotional or psychological state is nothing new. It has been used for generations to silence, control and punish women for refusing to accept abuse. The fact that it is still being used, especially within an institution facing ongoing scrutiny for its treatment of women, shows exactly how deep the culture of misogyny and victim blaming runs through our society. This is yet another reason why a lot of women do not trust the one institution that is supposed to protect us.
Baroness Casey’s 2023 review, which featured Lorraine’s experience as a case study, found the Met to be institutionally misogynistic. At the time, Commissioner Mark Rowley promised a “doubling down on standards” and a fast-tracked clean-up of internal misconduct. But Lorraine, quite reasonably, says the promises ring hollow. “They have done nothing to help me or support me in any way,” she told the BBC. “They’ve just made it really, really difficult for me throughout.”
There are now calls for the Independent Office for Police Conduct to investigate Catherine Roper, the former head of the Directorate of Professional Standards who now serves as chief constable of Wiltshire Police. Whether that will happen remains to be seen. But Lorraine’s case should be setting off alarm bells far beyond the Met.
If the system doesn’t change how it treats women, especially those it labels “unreliable” or “emotional”, then it is failing to grasp the most basic lessons of its own past. A woman being upset when reporting a predatory officer should not be seen as a reason to doubt her – it should be the most expected and understandable response in the world.
It should not take seven years, multiple victims, and an institutional review for someone like Lorraine to be believed.
