Ex Met Police cop from Hampshire defends racist WhatsApp post claiming it's "a little bit Monty Python"

Michael Chadwell, a former Metropolitan Police officer from Liss, Hampshire, was found guilty of sending a grossly offensive racist message by public communication at City of London Magistrates’ Court yesterday. The 62-year-old originally denied the one count against him.

Court heard he posted the message in a private WhatsApp group, comprised of retired Met officers, on September 28, 2022. He shared a graphic, which had been created by someone else and shared on social media, showing a picture of different coloured parrots above an image of children of different races, court heard.

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Text on the images said “Why do we cherish the variety of colour in every species… but our own?”, underneath which a comment in response said “because I have never had a bike stolen out of my front yard by a parrot”. Chadwell had pleaded not guilty to the charge at Westminster Magistrates’ Court last month.

Giving evidence yesterday, he said: “The reason I’ve come here today is because I don’t believe that joke is racist.” Chadwell, who retired in November 2015, said he agreed with the text on the original post and “the reason I’ve sent the joke is because what’s written underneath is silly, it’s a riposte, someone has written something funny underneath”.

"Whilst agreeing with the imagery in the first part, what’s written underneath is a piece of silliness that’s been said about it,” he added. “My reason for (posting) it into the group was because of what the person had written on Facebook underneath, which I felt was Dadaist, surreal and a little bit Monty Python.”

District judge Tan Ikram noted the incident occurred after Chadwell retired, after he previously worked in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and Counter Terrorism Command. The judge added: “It was sent in a group which had previously, by the defendant’s own admission, circulated racist jokes.

"I use the word ‘jokes’ but I will come back to that word. Jokes can be grossly offensive and can amount to a criminal offence and therefore I do not trivialise by using the word joke.” The judge said the “absolute clear implication” of the post is that “black people steal”, adding: “It’s a clearly racist generalisation and characterisation and caricature of ethnic people. I have no doubt in my mind that it’s grossly offensive.”

He added: “It was a message sent by the defendant on to the WhatsApp group and it was, I am sure, grossly offensive. This message was sent, I accept, amongst many other message which must have existed on that WhatsApp group but sent not more than a month after a previous message (from someone else) which the defendant accepts was racist.

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“The Crown have put it very bluntly – they say that he joined in. He joined in in this criminal offending by sending these jokes." The judge added that he was “troubled” by Mr Chadwell’s reluctance to say that at least one of them was racist.

"He was aware because he said in a subsequent post ‘Oops, sorry not too woke’”, he added.

Last month, Chadwell’s five co-defendants, all also former Met officers, admitted sending grossly offensive racist messages, including about the Duchess of Sussex, in the same WhatApp group.

They are Robert Lewis, 62, of Camberley, Surrey; Peter Booth, 66, of Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire; Anthony Elsom, 67, of Bournemouth, Dorset; Alan Hall, 65, of Stowmarket, Suffolk; and Trevor Lewton, 65, of Swansea, South Wales.

According to the charges, some of the messages shared in the chat also referred to the Prince and Princess of Wales, the late Queen and the late Duke of Edinburgh, as well as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, former home secretary Priti Patel and ex-health secretary Sajid Javid.

The charges, which relate to messages shared between September 2020 and 2022, came after a BBC Newsnight investigation in October last year which prompted a probe by the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards.

The six former Met officers were due to be sentenced on Monday but this was adjourned to December 8 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

The defendants have all been granted unconditional bail.