Victims being ‘let down’ by justice system, Met Police chief says after paedophile sentenced

The Metropolitan Police has again hit out at the courts after a paedophile who used AI to make nude images of children was released on bail to his flat near a playground.

Both Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and Detective Chief Inspector Brian Kelleher spoke outside Wood Green Crown Court following the sentencing of Zafer Dogan, a 32-year-old who used computer software to make obscene images from photographs that he had secretly taken of women and children.

Dogan was jailed for was jailed for two years and four months having admitted to various image offences, including making indecent images of children.

However, the case prompted criticism from police and the Crown Prosecution Service, who had repeatedly opposed granting Dogan bail to a flat overlooking a children’s playground, citing the “risk” he posed to the surrounding area.

Mr Kelleher spoke of “frustration” among officers about Dogan’s case.

In a statement read outside court, Sir Mark said: “It isn’t often you’ll see me outside a court following a sentencing. But I’m here because this case is just another example of victims being let down by justice system that often fails to put their safety first. And in this case, those victims are children.

“Ever increasing volumes of cases are raised with me by angry and sometimes upset officers, who are doing all they can to protect victims and communities that feel hamstrung by a justice system that, seemingly, under pressure, makes unfathomable decisions.

“That’s why I’m here today to push for victims to be put before criminals. as well as support Brian and his officers so that their concerns are heard.”

He added: “Zafer Dogen, who admitted his guilt for these offences today was surprisingly allowed to return to the very address from which he targeted his victims who lived close by.

“Prosecutors rightly opposed bail on multiple occasions, building on officers clear assessments of the great risk he posed and yet bail decisions were ultimately made that prioritised the offender’s interests over the safety and the peace of mind of the victims.

“The resort was that a victim and their family found themselves living in close proximity to a man who had admitted targeting them. They were so fearful, (they) ultimately felt forced to move to a distant temporary accommodation, disrupting their lives and disrupting their children’s lives, simply to escape being in the neighbourhood of the offender.

“That is simply not acceptable.

“The children should be put first, not the paedophile. The pressure to reduce the remand population has contributed to more dangerous and prolific offenders being granted bail routinely despite strong submissions from the police and CPS.”

The case follows repeated criticism of the courts by Sir Mark, most pointedly in the case of Simon Levy, which saw catastrophic police and court failures leave the registered sex offender free to kill twice and commit a series of sex attacks.

The Met chief has already warned that far fewer knife crime suspects are being remanded in custody, with serial offenders including one who tried to smuggle “a small sword” into Notting Hill Carnival bailed multiple times, and cited another case that saw “a sex offender who should have been remanded in custody bailed to an address two doors down from his victim”.

Mr Kelleher told the Press Association: “The matters at court… went through a series of challenges where the police and CPS opposed bail, opposed his being bailed back to the address, but the courts continued to bail him, and that went through a series of three or four different hearings.”

He went on: “There are certainly frustrations, especially where, like in this case, we identify an offender who’s moved beyond the normal pattern of slightly more passive collecting of material into producing it yourself, and when we then highlight the risk to the court to really try and challenge those systems to put someone into custody.”

Criminals found with child abuse images are increasingly being dealt with exclusively in the community rather than in custody, Mr Kelleher added, amid sentencing changes designed to ease prison overcrowding.

These mean that defendants facing a likely sentence of 12 months or less will be released on bail, because jail terms of this length will be suspended.

The officers’ frustration comes after the fallout of the Levy case saw sharp criticisms levelled by Sir Mark.

The Met, British Transport Police (BTP), CPS and courts all committed a series of blunders in dealing with Levy, with the Met describing a “collective system failure” while aiming to put particular focus on court hearings where Levy was bailed.

In the wake of Levy’s sentencing, Sir Mark hit out at the bail decisions, telling the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “He was repeatedly by the police put before the courts seeking remanding in custody.

“The police were saying this guy is too dangerous to be on the streets, and between CPS and the courts, they kept bailing him.”

Sir Mark insisted he was not trying to “absolve” the Met of its responsibility but maintained “dangerous people need remanding in custody”.

He said it was “not acceptable for a struggling criminal justice system to put an increasing amount of risks on the street, and then say to the police ‘we’re going to give you a bigger and bigger list of dangerous people to monitor’ and then focus all the criticism on us if we don’t do it as well as we could”.

There were two hearings at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court in May and June 2025, when BTP officers applied for Levy to be kept in custody but the court released him, despite the fact that he had been arrested on suspicion of one murder, one rape and multiple sexual assaults since he was first released from prison in February 2023.

The prosecutor did not oppose bail at the first hearing, and did not give the court all the available information when considering bail at the second hearing, but the CPS said the errors were made “in the context of a criminal justice system under significant pressure”.

Levy failed to appear at another three crown court hearings in June, July and August, variously due to illness and not being told about a court date, and his bail conditions were continued.

But there were also police failings in dealing with the serial sex offender.

BTP arrested him for groping a string of women on the Tube in November 2024 but said they did not have enough evidence to charge him, also failing to realise that he was using a stolen Oyster card that belonged to a bus driver that gave him free travel while preying on young women.

Delays in organising an ID parade left him free to commit a harrowing rape in January 2025 and the murder of Carmenza Valencia-Trujillo, 53, in the March.

The woman he raped and strangled in the January had described him accurately to the Met police and told them where he lived, but had been too unwell to be interviewed because she was withdrawing from drugs and was not interviewed until several months later.

Met officers who monitor sex offenders also visited Levy in March and July 2025, but were duped by his lies that he did not go out and stayed in watching YouTube and films instead.