£500,000 race payout

A black police constable who claims she was racially and sexually abused by her colleagues has won a reported £500,000 payout from the Metropolitan Police.

Joy Hendricks, 38, claimed fellow officers had pursued a campaign of harassment against her - including giving her white face paint and setting her uniform alight.

She was even charged and later acquitted of assaulting an officer who had dubbed her "Stevie Lawrence number two".

The out-of-court settlement, which may rise above £500,000 with legal costs, means that the Met will avoid the embarrassment of a public hearing. A tribunal had been scheduled for the autumn but a deal was finally struck this week following protracted talks with conciliation service Acas.

In 1999 Pc Hendricks was cleared of punching a fellow officer after telling Horseferry Road magistrates that she had acted in self-defence. She said at the time:

"The sergeant described me as dodgy [police slang for corrupt] as I passed him in the canteen and then he called me 'Stevie Lawrence number two'.

"When I asked him to apologise he approached me with a snooker cue and then I hit him with a closed fist in self-defence. In court he said I had violently assaulted him."

The court also heard that she had been the butt of racist taunts since joining the Met in 1987. During five years based at Islington police station, she claimed she had suffered " systematic victimisation". Officers called her "groid", short for negroid, and "bif ", short for "black ignorant f***er".

On one occasion a fellow officer gave her white face paint, saying it was because she behaved as if she was white.

She also claimed she had been sexually assaulted after a night out with colleagues, had her uniform set alight and had been locked in a room for an hour.

Since she was acquitted in 1999, Pc Hendricks has been off work due to ill health, living on ?52-aweek welfare benefits since the force stopped her sick pay.

Leroy Logan, chair of the Met Black Police Association, said: "The force could have treated her better."

The Met, which was branded "institutionally racist" by the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, currently faces two further investigations by former union leader Bill Morris and the Commission for Racial Equality.

In 2000, ex-Pc Sarah Locker was awarded £215,000 following a campaign of abuse. Sergeant Belinda Sinclair won £500,000 for sexual discrimination.

A Met police spokesman said today: "The case has been settled. It involves the payment of a sum of money to Ms Hendricks without an admission of liability on the part of the Met."