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A damning report has exposed the "toxic culture" within the London Fire Brigade - with pornographic videos, helmets filled with urine and racist bullying among the abuse staff have endured.

The independent review concluded that the organisation is "institutionally misogynist and racist" with the cruelty frequently euphemised as "banter".

Sexism

Some examples include women being groped during training exercises and having to run a daily gauntlet of sexist abuse - with many routinely referred to as "woman" or "front bottom" by colleagues.

Other women were even punched and attacked, the report found.

It also referred to instances of men watching porn in fire stations.

"Any close inspection of some of the fire stations shows a watch culture, where men are sometimes huddled around a screen watching porn, which belongs in the last century," it said.

The review also revealed women had their uniforms urinated on and men kept diaries of when they suspected women were on a period and telling them they "didn't want to be around women who were bleeding".

Some men had explicitly said they did not want women on their watch and there were multiple accounts of women being subjected to unwanted sexual attention.

"This included men showing them pornographic videos and taking bets on who would get to sleep with them in the watch.

"One woman spoke of the distress of receiving video calls from a man exposing his penis and saying, 'you want this don't you'," the report said.

The review team were also informed that there have been 10 cases of staff being disciplined for sexual harassment over the last five years, with none of them being dismissed.

One female firefighter told the review team that the threshold for bullying is so high "you would have to gouge someone's eyes out to get sacked" and that "everything else is seen as banter".

She added that she tells her female friends not to let male firefighters into their homes to check smoke alarms because they go through women's drawers looking for underwear and sex toys.

"Then they will spend hours bragging about the dildo they found and they will refer to the women as sluts.

"We hear it all the time and I'm sick of it. You shouldn't have to listen to this all the time in any workplace," she said.

Racism

Racist bullying was a key feature in the report, with the team referring to incidents of people's religion being mocked, while others had their helmets filled with urine.

Black, Asian and minority ethnic workers largely feel they have to work twice as hard to be heard and seen, the report found.

One black firefighter said he had been subject to racist bullying on his watch, which culminated in someone putting a mock noose over his locker.

The review team also heard from a Muslim firefighter who had been routinely bullied on his watch because of his faith.

His colleagues spoke to him in an Indian accent and would routinely ask him about his "magic carpet", as well as make racist remarks such as "off to your rucksack training, it shouldn't be hard, all you have to do is pull the cord" when he was sent on training courses.

The report added that his colleagues asked how his Al Qaeda training had gone when he returned from the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

His work colleagues also put a piece of bacon in his sandwich, and when he transferred to another watch, he said the abuse continued and colleagues put a pork sausage in his pocket while he was washing the dishes.

"After making several complaints that were dismissed, he began to suffer from depression and anxiety, and would later collapse at work and be admitted to hospital.

"He has since been diagnosed with PTSD and has confessed to having suicidal thoughts," the report said.

The review said this example demonstrates the impact of casual cruelty that is continuing unchecked in some stations as managers consider racial abuse to be acceptable "banter".

It said: "Those complaints are frequently blocked by managers and not allowed to go anywhere because they don't deem such abuse to be racist means there is little protection or justice mechanisms for those on the receiving end of abuse."