THE scope of the inquiry into how a serving police officer murdered Sarah Everard fails to “address the issue of misogyny” in the Metropolitan Police, campaigners said today. 

Concerns about the terms of reference of the two-part inquiry, laid out by the Home Office earlier this week, came as peers voted down a bid to bolster the powers of the probe on Monday evening. 

The amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would have forced the probe to be converted into a full-blown statutory inquiry, was rejected by 90 votes to 33 in the House of Lords.

A statutory inquiry allows witnesses to be forced to give evidence if required. 

The vote came after the Home Office revealed details of the independent probe, headed by Dame Elish Angliolini QC. 

The first phase will look at former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens’s conduct during his career and any abuses of power, examining whether any red flags were missed. 

Couzens is now serving a whole-life sentence after abusing his police powers to abduct, rape and murder Everard in March last year. 

Home Secretary Priti Patel said that the first phase will be non-statutory so that it can be carried out “as swiftly and flexibly as possible” to give Everard’s family answers quickly.

She has not ruled out putting the inquiry onto a statutory footing if necessary.

But Labour former shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti pressed the government on Monday to go further with a “full-blown” statutory inquiry now.

“Without powers to compel co-operation we will not get the kind of inquiry that is required,” she told peers. 

Baroness O’Loan, whose independent panel into the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan accused the Met of institutional corruption, also backed calls for a statutory inquiry. 

The cross bencher said: “I do not believe that a non-statutory inquiry can act as effectively as one which is armed with the power to compel witnesses and the discovery of documentation.”

Campaign group Reclaim These Streets said that women “deserve a statutory inquiry” and urged for the scope to be widened.

“By focusing only on Couzens, the investigation perpetuates the bad apple myth. This myth fails women by failing to tackle any wider cultural issues of misogyny in the police,” a spokesperson said.