The head of London’s force quits in the wake of a series of controversies involving the organisation.
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Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick is leaving her role after a series of damaging controversies.
Dame Cressida said she had been left with “no choice” after London Mayor Sadiq Khan made it clear to her he had no confidence in her leadership.
Last week, the police watchdog found “disgraceful” misogyny, discrimination and sex harassment among some Met PCs.
Dame Cressida, the first woman to lead the biggest UK police force, also faced criticism over the Sarah Everard case.
Her conduct was referenced in an independent report that accused the force of institutional corruption over the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan, and before she became commissioner she was in charge of the operation that led to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Speaking on BBC London hours before her departure was announced, she insisted that she had “absolutely no intention” of quitting, and that she was “seething angry” about the police watchdog’s findings into the culture at Charing Cross police station.
But in his statement, Mr Khan said he was “not satisfied” with Dame Cressida’s response and that she “will be stepping aside” as a result.
Mr Khan thanked the commissioner for her 40-year policing career.
He said he would now “work closely with the home secretary on the appointment of a new commissioner” with an aim to restore trust in the Met.
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Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Dame Cressida “has served her country with great dedication and distinction over many decades”.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said the police chief held the role “during challenging times” and that she “exemplified the increasingly diverse nature of our police”.
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper thanked Dame Cressida for her public service and said reform was needed to rebuild public confidence after recent cases.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said a change in the force’s leadership was “long overdue”.
He added that Boris Johnson, whose part in the Downing Street parties held during lockdown is still being investigated by the Met, must have no role in choosing her successor.
Harvey Proctor, a former MP falsely accused of murder during a disastrous probe into claims of a VIP paedophile ring, said her departure had come not a “day too soon” and called for a full inquiry into all her “personal mistakes”.
Alastair Morgan, who has spent decades campaigning for justice for his brother Daniel after he was killed with an axe in a pub car park in south-east London in the 1980s, said Dame Cressida had “disappointed” his family on every level during her time in charge.
“Although I think it is a shame that we are seeing another commissioner disappear under a cloud of smoke, it is necessary,” he said.
A decision taken for her
Analysis by Tom Symonds, home affairs correspondent
On Thursday morning she was adamant. She wasn’t going. But all the signs are that the decision was taken for her by Sadiq Khan
The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is appointed by the Queen, on the advice of the home secretary, but the commissioner cannot do the job without the support of the mayor.
In the last few weeks attempts were made to convince him that the Met’s plan would deliver change.
But that plan involved a review – by Lady Louise Casey – that would have taken much of the year.
She had been given the power to roam freely through the force looking for bad attitudes and poor management of disciplinary issues.
That would have been a period when more revelations were inevitably going to emerge making the commissioner’s position even more difficult.
The mayor’s timetable was different – days, weeks at most. He needed to be convinced. His officials didn’t sound it on Wednesday. Thursday night’s development is the result.
Dame Cressida, who served in the role for four years and was recently given a two-year contract extension, has agreed with the mayor that she will continue to serve for a short time period to enable an orderly handover.
She said in a statement: “It is with huge sadness that following contact with the mayor of London today, it is clear that the mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue.
“He has left me no choice but to step aside as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service.”
“The murder of Sarah Everard and many other awful cases recently have, I know, damaged confidence in this fantastic police service,” she added.
“There is much to do – and I know that the Met has turned its full attention to rebuilding public trust and confidence. For that reason I am very optimistic about the future for the Met and for London.”
Ken Marsh, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers in London, said Dame Cressida had been unfairly treated.
“We feel the way she has been treated is wholly unfair and we did believe that she was the person who could take us through this and bring us out the other side,” he said.
In 2008, the then-Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair stood down after he lost the support of the London mayor at the time, Boris Johnson.
Controversies as commissioner
Image source, Reuters
- Officers based at Charing Cross police station were found by an inquiry to have joked about rape and exchanged offensive social media messages. The Met said it was “deeply sorry”
- The delay to the publication of Sue Gray’s full report into lockdown parties at Downing Street was a “stitch-up” between the Met and No 10, the SNP and Liberal Democrats said. The Met’s investigation is ongoing
- The rape, abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Met Police officer prompted a wave of criticism and scrutiny
- Further controversy came when clashes broke out between women and police officers at a vigil in her memory, held under Covid lockdown measures
- There were accusations of racism from the mother of two women murdered in a park in Wembley. Mina Smallman believes police treated the disappearance and deaths of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry less urgently than if they had been white
- The disappearance of Richard Okorogheye, a teenager found dead two weeks after his mother reported him missing, is being reviewed by the police watchdog, which will consider whether ethnicity played a role in the way his case was handled
- And athlete Bianca Williams and her partner believe they were racially profiled when their car was stopped by Met officers in Maida Vale, in 2020. The couple were handcuffed and separated from their baby son. The Met apologised
- Dame Cressida also had to deal with the repercussions from the disastrous Operation Midland, the multimillion-pound investigation which saw detectives duped by false claims of a VIP sex abuse ring made by the paedophile and fantasist Carl Beech
- A report by an independent panel set up in 2013 into the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan accused the force of institutional corruption, and found that the then-Assistant Commissioner Dame Cressida had initially refused to grant access to a police internal data system
- Further criticism came over the security of Wembley stadium during the final of the Euro 2020 championships, which saw thousands of ticketless fans storm the venue. Dame Cressida defended the Met’s response
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