A Metropolitan Police constable who referred to Jewish people as “dirty Zionists”, described non-Muslims as “kuffar” and made controversial comments about 9/11 on social media has been dismissed without notice after being found guilty of gross misconduct (Evening Standard, Mail, MyLondon, Telegraph).
PC Ruby Begum, who was attached to the Met’s taskforce (a division which deals with public order), apologised during a police misconduct hearing and admitted she used offensive language such as “dirty Zionists. Hell is waiting” while serving as a special constable.
Those comments were made after Hamas-affiliated militants kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank in 2014, and Israel retaliated with a military operation in the Gaza Strip.
Around the same time, the then special constable wrote: “Israel have no limits. Scumbags I can’t wait for the day they get severely punished.”
Later that year, she posted: “Zionists have no hearts! They’ll get what’s coming to them subhanallah [glory be to God].”
The 29-year-old also admitted to using the highly derogatory Arabic term ‘kuffar’ to refer to non-Muslism, saying: “Kuffar lips have been all over my mug, there is no way I’m using that thing again.” Elsewhere, she repeatedly described Pakistanis as “p***s”.
One post referenced the 2014 beheading of Alan Henning at the hands of ‘Jihadi John’: “You lot saying free Alan Henning. Remember the Muslim brothers and sisters imprisoned by Kuffar.”
She also made a series of posts about the September 11th attacks.
On the 17th anniversary, Ms Begum said: “You must be stupid if you think I’m gonna do two minutes silence 9/11.”
A year later, she posted: “Omg it’s 9/11 today. Jokes. I only noticed.”
Around 25,000 posts were made on X between 2013 and 2019 under the username @ruby-beee. The posts remained visible on her account after she became a Special Constable in 2014, and later a PC in 2016.
Begum gained widespread recognition in 2020 after a photo of her facing down anti-lockdown protesters in London went viral.
However, in 2021, the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards received information from the Mail on Sunday detailing Begum’s controversial X posts, and launched an investigation against her.
The misconduct hearing looked at whether she breached the standards of professional behaviour in discreditable conduct; equality and diversity; and honesty and integrity.
During the hearing, the panel was told accusations against Begum that she had held an interest in extremist preachers and had failed to disclose her links to a jihadi woman living inside a so-called Islamic State caliphate in Syria had been dropped over a lack of evidence.
When asked about the Mail on Sunday headline from its 2021 report, which read “Exposed: Muslim policewoman who was hailed as a hero for confronting anti-lockdown protesters posted a torrent of racist messages”, Begum said she felt she was being targeted for her Islamic faith and culture.
The investigation panel also asked why Begum didn’t delete the posts, to which she responded: “In my head it didn’t stick out like it was something really bad I had to go back years and years for a specific tweet and delete it. I didn’t think about it all.”
Begum also claimed her comments about the 9/11 terror attacks were a response to the Islamophobic abuse that followed and were not mocking the attacks nor those who died.
“I wasn’t mocking 9/11,” she said. “There is always tension on the anniversary in Muslim communities. Something would always happen.
“(The anniversary) took me back to the hurtful and painful experiences of when I was young and when I was a teenager.
Begum, who was raised in a Muslim household in east London, admitted that she had used discriminatory language when describing Arabs, people from Pakistan and non-Muslims.
However, she denied gross misconduct and said her comments amounted to simple misconduct and a final warning would be sufficient.
Disagreeing, the panel concluded that her posts were “appalling”, “derogatory” and “abusive”, and told the defendant her actions amounted to gross misconduct and dismissed her without notice.
Chairwoman Evis Samupfonda said: “(The posts) are derogatory and abusive, and also show a lack of tolerance for others who do not share the same characteristics as Ms Begum.”
Samupfonda went on to describe the comments as “so vile that members of the public could not be confident they would be treated fairly”.
