Boris Johnson has refused to promise a public inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s handling of the Sarah Everard murder.
The Prime Minister suggested investigations by the Met and the Independent Office for Police Conduct should first be concluded but did not rule out further action.
Mr Johnson also appeared to agree with the suggestion that people who do not trust a police officer that stops them should shout or ‘flag down a bus’.
Repeatedly rejecting calls for an immediate public inquiry, he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: ‘We do need to look systemically at not just the Wayne Couzens case but the whole handling of rape, domestic violence, sexual violence and female complaints about harassment all together.’
It comes after the Met suggested that people who were stopped by officers they did not trust should run into a house, knock on a door or flag down a bus, in comments which were ridiculed by campaigners, women and people of colour.
The Met’s reputation has been battered by the case, which saw a serving member of the force – Couzens – kidnap, rape and murder Sarah, who he falsely arrested while using his warrant card.
This week he was jailed for life, with the fall out from the case continuing to raise difficult questions for the Met – which was also criticised for its handling of a vigil to Sarah.
Lord Ian Blair, who served as the Met commissioner from 2005 to 2008, had previously told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the force should now face an ‘absolutely forensic’ public inquiry into what went wrong.
Meanwhile, Mr Johnson appeared to back new and widely condemned Met advice for women who they are stopped by a lone officer they do not trust.
The advice issued in the wake of the murder also included suggestions to shout, knock on doors or call 999, measures which were put to the Prime Minister on Sunday morning.
He replied: ‘If you are suspicious about the way in which you are being treated by a police officer and you are worried for some reason, then clearly you should seek help in the way you have described.
‘My view is that the police do – overwhelmingly – a wonderful job and what I want is the public, and women in particular, girls and young women, women of all ages, to trust the police.
‘They are overwhelmingly trustworthy.’
At least 15 police officers have killed women in the past 12 years, new research suggests.
Mr Johnson, who was this morning pictured jogging in a shirt, claimed ‘record sums’ were being put in to ‘all parts of government’, when asked about cuts to policing – but said the problems in the justice system were about more than money.
‘The delays are coming up in that moment between the report of an offence and the passing of that offence to the prosecutors’, he said.
‘What is not working properly is that the CPS and the prosecutors are not working well enough with the police to assure women that a decent case is presented and that there is a chance of prosecution.’
In a feisty exchange with Mr Marr, he added: ‘We will stop at nothing to make sure that we get more rapists behind bars and we have more successful prosecutions for rape and for sexual violence.
‘Because that, I think, is going wrong.’
Mr Johnson and his home secretary Priti Patel have backed the Met’s commissioner Dame Cressida Dick amid widespread calls for her to resign.
The governing Conservatives are holding a party conference in Manchester this week.
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MORE : Cressida Dick heckled but doesn’t quit as she apologises for Sarah murder
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