Five former Metropolitan police officers have pleaded guilty to sending grossly offensive racist messages on WhatsApp, including about the Duchess of Sussex. According to the charges, some of the messages shared in the chat also referenced the Prince and Princess of Wales, the late queen, as well as Rishi Sunak, and MPs Priti Patel and Sajid Javid. The charges relate to messages shared between September 2020 and 2022 after an investigation by the Met’s directorate of professional standards, which was prompted by a BBC Newsnight investigation. The five men entered their guilty pleas at Westminster magistrates court on Thursday afternoon. One of them, Robert Lewis, was a Home Office official before being dismissed for gross misconduct last November, the government department said. Lewis, 62, of Camberley, Surrey, admitted eight counts of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in May 2015. Peter Booth, 66, of Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, pleaded guilty to four counts of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in April 2001. Anthony Elsom, 67, of Bournemouth, Dorset, pleaded guilty to three counts of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in May 2012. Alan Hall, 65, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, entered guilty pleas to three counts of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in June 2015. Trevor Lewton, 65, of Swansea, South Wales, pleaded guilty to one count of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in August 2009. Another former Met officer, Michael Chadwell, denied one count of sending by public communication grossly offensive racist messages. He retired from the Met in November 2015. The 62-year-old, from Liss, Hampshire, will stand trial on 6 November at the City of London magistrates court. The other five will be sentenced on the same day and at the same court after the conclusion of Chadwell’s trial. All six men have been granted unconditional bail in the meantime. It is the latest in a series of cases featuring offensive messages being shared on WhatsApp by police officers. The officers were charged by post with offences under the Communications Act 2003. The five men were not serving at any point during their participation in the group, the Met made clear. It added that they served in various parts of the Met throughout their careers and all spent time in what is now known as the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command. According to BBC Newsnight, the group shared racist images too offensive to broadcast, and messages used the “very strongest racial slurs” including the P-word and the N-word. Some of the posts referred to the government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, while others joked about flooding in Pakistan that left almost 1,700 people dead.