Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has condemned the “vile” racist and misogynistic abuse directed at a Muslim police officer after she received an award for championing women in policing.
Pc Umar, the first hijab-wearing officer within her policing area, was presented with the Outstanding Contribution to Women in Policing Award.
But Sir Mark revealed that the award had triggered an “online tirade” of abuse, including an AI-generated image depicting the officer with a suicide bomb.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, he said: “The federation put out this really positive thing about this award, and the online tirade of vileness, of racist, anti-Islam and all sorts of other abuse, and misogynistic, was horrific.
“At one extreme, somebody did an AI-generated image and put a suicide bomb on her.
“I mean, the stuff out there is just vile.”
Sir Mark said female officers, and those from minority ethnic backgrounds, are more likely to suffer online abuse.
He added that the same is true for women MPs, nodding to Pc Umar’s role as an operational officer working to protect parliamentarians who face abuse and threats.
“This is a vile world to be a public servant in,” Sir Mark said.
The commissioner added in a statement: “Every career path is open to you regardless of whether you happen to wear a kippah, turban or hijab like Fiona.
“She is being celebrated for being an excellent office demonstrating this reality.
“But it angers me that not for the first time, a day that should have been a celebration for Fiona was marred by hateful, intolerant abuse online.
“These people haven’t met Fiona. They know nothing of her important work.
“They just saw that she is a female Muslim officer who wears a hijab and decided she wasn’t deserving as a result.”
Pc Umar was commended by the federation for leading the development of the Hijab Project, through which new uniform options were introduced to meet the needs of Muslim women officers.
She has provided one-to-one support to Muslim officers and staff and strengthened relationships between policing and Muslim communities, the federation said.
Reacting to receiving the award in a video shared on X by the Metropolitan Police Federation, Pc Umar said: “I’m truly humbled to receive this award because I’m super passionate about the work I do around representation and inclusion for women in policing.
“I never thought about a career in the police until my daughter at the time said to me, ‘Can women like you do that job?’, and I was really offended because obviously she’d never seen anyone who looked like me being a police officer, and it’s because of that that I have continued to do this work and to try and create a space for women who look like me in policing across the UK.”