Rape cases dropped ‘because Metropolitan Police stored evidence in faulty fridges’

Damning report says all evidence in one freezer ‘had to be destroyed because it could no longer be used’

Rape cases have been dropped because DNA evidence was destroyed in “dilapidated or broken fridges and freezers” used by the Metropolitan Police, a damning report has found.

Baroness Louise Casey made the discovery during her review of standards and culture in Britain’s largest force, which concluded that it was institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, and needs “fundamental change”.

She said her team discovered that someone had kept their lunch in a sexual offence unit’s evidence fridge, while during last summer’s record heatwave, one chiller had “broken down completely”, meaning that all of the rape kits inside it could not be used as evidence.