Some 3,000 Metropolitan Police officers cannot be fully deployed due to misconduct allegations or health issues, including "about 100" who are not trusted to speak to the public, commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said.
He said about 500 officers of the 3,000 were suspended or on restricted duties.
Sir Mark told the BBC he lacked the power to sack them, which he described as "perverse".
He has been calling for more a change in the rules on sacking officers.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme some officers were "letting us down".
"I have about 100 officers in the organisation who have very restrictive conditions on them because, frankly, we don't trust them to talk to members of the public and it's completely mad that I have to employ people like that as police officers who you can't trust to have contact with the public, it's ridiculous."
He told presenter Nick Robinson he was unable throw them out of the force, due to restricted powers available to him.
"We're looking at whether we've got any new legal levers but on the conventional approaches, we can't, it's perverse, isn't it?," Sir Mark said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63684172
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That is completely crazy