Omar

A YOUNG black man said fears he harboured about the Met growing up in north London have been confirmed by aOm botched police response to a report of racially aggravated assault.

Omar, who did not want his surname in the paper, said he was punched more than 10 times by two men after trying to stop them abusing kebab shop staff in Camden Town.

The shop’s CCTV recorded two men demanding the staff “speak English” before singling out the 28-year- old who was grabbing a takeaway after a fun Friday night out hearing one of his favourite musicians at the Jazz Café in June.

Delays in investigating led to transport CCTV expiring before police admitted they had “no further lines of inquiry” and effectively dropped the case after just three months.

Omar said he had been shocked, given the Met was recovering from damning findings of institutional racism, that the case was not taken more seriously.

“Two racist thugs have gotten away with a horrible attack and the police have basically done nothing about it,” said Omar.

“Nothing like this has happened to me before – and I wouldn’t have ever expected it to happen in somewhere like the heart of Camden.”

Omar said he had reported the attack that night despite family advice hammered into him as a child “not to bother with the police”.

He said: “Growing up there was a general communal feeling between my friends that the police aren’t there to help you. Even to this day, the sight of a police car or a policeman makes me feel uncomfortable, because I fear they will target me.

“You have it drilled into you from a young age that the only person that’s got your back is yourself and your community. You have it drilled in you to not rely on the police to solve crimes because they’re not going to treat you seriously. The police aren’t there to help people that look like me is basically the core feeling.”

He added: “On the night I honestly heard the voices of people I had listened to growing up saying don’t bother reporting it. Even at the point of them attacking me, and this is perhaps more scarring, I basically let them punch me because in the back of my mind even then I was thinking if I had done something, somehow it would come back on me.

“But I went against my nature and reported it. I did everything textbook. Now if something like this happens again I don’t know what I’d do.

“It’s a pretty gruelling process, to relive it all. What do you gain from it? I wouldn’t want to go through the process, and I say that as a black man.  “I constantly had to explain and justify myself to them. When I consider the overall experience, it led me to think about why they had dragged their feet.”

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley meets residents at the Crowndale Centre last month

The New Journal has seen emails between Omar and the Camden and Islington hate crime team. He was told that the men’s names would not be able to be gathered by checking card payment logs at the kebab shop, a claim a lawyer has told the New Journal is unlikely to be correct.

Omar was also told there was a time limit on dealing with the case, but it is understood these are reserved for low-level cases and not for assault considered to be racially motivated.

CCTV from the tube at Mornington Crescent that could have led to an identification was lost due to a delay in attempting to access it.

The Metropolitan Police was exposed as suffering from collapsing public trust and operating with institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia in the landmark Casey report published earlier this year.

Omar said he had been assigned a “clueless officer” who took weeks to respond before telling him it was too late to do anything, adding: “I honestly think the recruitment standard is ‘have you got a pulse?’ I was dealing with a gormless individual who took so long to do anything. The lack of seriousness with dealing with it, it sort of brings to life all the things I had heard about the Met. Given what was said in the Casey report, you’d think they would really bend over backwards to try and get this one resolved.”

The Met, like all public authorities, has been severely hindered by funding cuts – £278million has been lost since Boris Johnson began making cuts when he was Mayor of London more than a decade ago. Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley came to the Crowndale Centre last month to unveil a reformed Met Police with an emphasis on trust and responsiveness.

The Met confirmed the report of a “racially aggravated assault” and that images of the men had been “shared internally” with another police force and would be made public at a later stage.

Superintendent Jack Rowlands of Central North Command Unit added: “This was a serious assault and the victim was absolutely right to report it to police. I have reviewed the investigation and can see that officers have worked hard to bring those responsible to justice.

“Officers have carried out significant inquiries in an attempt to identify the two men responsible, and we will follow up any information received about the images we have released. I am very sorry to hear that [the complainants] do not feel they have received the service they should have.”