… and Why It’s Costing Women Their Lives
When we talk about workplace bullying, most people picture an overbearing boss or a toxic colleague making life miserable. What we don’t picture is a 28-year veteran of the Metropolitan Police, a counter-terrorism officer, a senior professional trusted with national security, being systematically bullied, gaslit, and pushed out of his role by the very institution responsible for public safety.
Yet that is exactly what happened to Jonathan Wilson.
Jonathan didn’t leave the Met because he couldn’t handle the pressure. He didn’t retire early by choice. He was targeted. Frozen out. Undermined. Lied to. He was punished for trying to do the right thing and nearly lost his health in the process.
His story matters far beyond his own suffering, because everything Jonathan experienced on the inside is now showing up in the most devastating ways on the outside.
The Casey Report Confirmed It: The Harm Is Systemic
When Baroness Casey released her 2022 report into the Metropolitan Police, it wasn’t just a wake-up call, it was an indictment. Institutional racism. Institutional misogyny. Institutional homophobia. Institutional bullying.
All of it laid out plainly.
All of it echoing the exact concerns officers like Jonathan had been raising for years but were ignored, punished, or pushed out for daring to speak. Casey didn’t just describe a “bad culture.” She described a dangerous one, a culture so broken that women are being murdered while leadership hides behind PR strategies and illusionary reforms.
Here’s the part no one repeats loudly enough – men inside the force who raised the alarm were treated as threats, not allies. If this is how they treat their own, imagine how victims feel when they come forward.
How Decades of Failed Leadership Led Us Here
There’s a reason public trust in policing is collapsing. There’s a reason women feel unsafe walking home. There’s a reason officers with a history of domestic abuse or predatory behaviour were able to harm women, repeatedly, while wearing a badge.
Decades of weak, complacent, loyalty-over-integrity leadership allowed bullies to thrive and truth-tellers to be driven out.
In this episode Jonathan describes a senior leadership culture built on – nepotism, promotion for friends, not capable leaders. Favouritism, where silence is rewarded, and integrity is punished. Exclusion, key decisions made behind closed door. Institutional betrayal, where the abuse and problems were hidden and complainants discredited. Where blame pushed downward while misconduct rises upward. This isn’t a personnel issue. It’s a public safety crisis.
When bullying and psychological abuse becomes normalised inside policing, all violence becomes normalised outside policing.
The Human Cost Is Unavoidable and Unforgivable
Every time leadership chose to protect its own reputation instead of its people, the consequences spread. We saw how women were murdered by serving officers, this didn’t come out of nowhere.
They were the final, brutal symptoms of an institution that allowed misconduct to ferment for years. When you silence whistleblowers inside an organisation, you silence victims outside it too.
Jonathan thought he was dealing with an individual bully. Then he realised he was facing a coordinated campaign. He thought senior leaders would intervene. Instead, they shielded the perpetrators. He thought someone would care about truth and evidence. Instead, he was told to keep his head down, get in line, stay quiet. The mental health toll was enormous. The personal cost was staggering. But the societal cost, the erosion of trust in policing, the failure to protect women, and the weaponization of power.
We cannot talk about accountability without listening to the people who risked everything to warn us. Jonathan’s story doesn’t expose a crack in the system. It exposes the system.
Until we confront that — loudly, publicly, relentlessly — nothing changes.
We must demand policing that protects its most vulnerable and truth-tellers, how many more reports do we need, we have been told repeatedly, that this culture was rotten. There is no middle ground. If you care about safety, democracy, women’s lives, or accountability, share this. Talk about this. Make noise about this. Silence is the soil in which abuse grows. The more we drag these truths into the light, the fewer places they have to hide.
Listen now to The Gaslit Brain Series…. Bullied out of the Met: The Officer that Exposed a Culture of Abuse on The FEMCAST.
If you’ve missed our previous episodes, catch up — each one is designed to help you understand the psychology of abuse and learn how to protect yourself in relationships, workplaces, and beyond.
Awareness is protection – and when we know better — we can do better.
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