Biteback to publish Broken Yard by Tom Harper

Biteback Publishing has acquired Broken Yard: The Fall of the Metropolitan Police, a searing insight into corruption and mismanagement at Britain’s most famous police force, by investigative journalist Tom Harper. Olivia Beattie, Editorial Director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Northbank’s Martin Redfern. Audio rights have been acquired by Jodie Coles at W. F. Howes.

‘This book should be read by every police officer, every politician, and everybody who cares about law and order in this country’ Peter Oborne

Spanning the three decades from the murder of Stephen Lawrence to that of Sarah Everard, Broken Yard charts the Met’s fall from a position of unparalleled power to the troubled and discredited organisation we see today, placed under special measures and struggling to perform its most basic function: the protection of the public. The result is a devastating picture of a world-famous police force riven with corruption, misogyny and rank incompetence.

As a multi-award-winning investigative reporter at the Sunday Times and The Independent, Tom Harper covered Scotland Yard for fifteen years, beginning not long after the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian killed by Met Police officers in 2005. In 2017, Harper won Scoop of the Year at the Press Awards, which resulted in the sacking of Deputy Prime Minister Damian Green. He also won Young Journalist of the Year at the Press Awards and has been nominated as Specialist Journalist, Crime and Legal Affairs Journalist and News Reporter of the Year at the British Journalism Awards.

Harper said: ‘The new Met commissioner, Mark Rowley, has perhaps the most difficult job in Britain. Scotland Yard has become Broken Yard. Gripped by scandal, buffeted by budget cuts and grappling with soaring crime levels, the Metropolitan Police has lost so much trust with the public that it was recently put into special measures. How did this happen? What went wrong? And what can it do to restore its once fearsome reputation? I hope this book may provide answers to these important questions and I am thrilled to be publishing Broken Yard with Olivia Beattie and her team at Biteback.’

Beattie said: ‘Barely a day goes by without new evidence of staggering police wrongdoing. But even for those who consider themselves fully versed in the dishonesty, misogyny and code of omertà practised within the Met, Tom’s revelatory book still has the power to shock. With its forensic, clear-eyed research, this is a damning indictment of the force and an exceptional work of investigative journalism.’

Broken Yard will be published on 27 September, accompanied by a major publicity campaign.