Cressida Dick FINALLY quits

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Beleaguered Dame Cressida Dick has finally resigned as Metropolitan Police Commissioner after presiding over a litany of scandals at Scotland Yard.

The under-fire Commissioner had just hours earlier insisted that she had ‘no intention of going’, striking a bullish tone following London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to put her ‘on notice’ with just ‘days and weeks’ to enact major reforms to the force.

But in a statement released this evening, she announced that she had stepped down from her position after losing Mr Khan’s confidence. 

Her resignation has already sparked a political row, with Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey insisting that Boris Johnson must ‘publicly recuse’ himself from appointing her successor because he is being investigated by the force over Partygate allegations. 

Paying tribute to Dame Cressida, the Prime Minister tweeted: ‘Dame Cressida has served her country with great dedication and distinction over many decades. I thank her for her role protecting the public and making our streets safer.’ 

The news comes a week after Mr Khan said he was ‘not satisfied’ with the Met’s Commissioner’s response to calls for change following a series of scandals including the murder of Sarah Everard by depraved cop Wayne Couzens, and racist and misogynist and homophobic messages exchanged by officers shared by officers at Charing Cross Police Station.  

In her time leading Britain’s biggest police force, Dame Cressida faced a series of controversies — most recently the watchdog report into Charing Cross police station. The force also faced outrage over its apparent hesitation to launch an investigation into alleged lockdown-busting parties held in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office during the pandemic while restrictions were in place.

And there was widespread public fury over the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by depraved Met cop Wayne Couzens, as well as the force’s heavy-handed actions following her death in tackling a Clapham Common vigil held in her memory last year, and issuing clumsy advice telling women in trouble to flag down a passing bus that later had to be retracted.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has blamed ‘failures of leadership’ for the rotten culture at the Met, including by the commissioner herself. 

Dame Cressida began her career in London as a constable before holding a variety of posts on her way to becoming Scotland Yard’s first female chief. However, her leadership of the force came under increasing scrutiny following a series of failures.

Perhaps the most damaging blot on her card is that of the shambolic Operation Midland — the Met’s £1milliion investigation into spurious VIP child sex abuse allegations.

Innocent men, including the late Lord Brittan and former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, were pursued by the force in a probe sanctioned in 2014 while Dame Cressida was an assistant commissioner. The Met’s star witness Carl ‘Nick’ Beech was later revealed to be a serial liar and was jailed after police investigating his claims discovered his deceit.  

On Dame Cressida’s watch, ticketless football hooligans broke past Wembley’s security barriers during the Euros last year and stormed the grounds ahead of England’s clash with Italy. The Met was accused of not having enough officers on duty to create a ‘ring of steel’ around he venue to hold back the frenzied England supporters.

Dame Cressida has also faced questions about why Miss Everard’s evil attacker Couzens was not arrested before he kidnapped, raped and murdered the 33-year-old marketing manager for flashing offences previously reported to the police. 

And last summer, the force was branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ by an independent panel investigating police inquiries into the unsolved murder in the 1980s of private detective Daniel Morgan. 

Doubling-down on her record as commissioner tonight, Dame Cressida said: ‘Undertaking this role as a servant of the people of London and the UK has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life. Throughout my career I have sought to protect the people of this wonderful thriving and diverse city. 

‘There have been many tough calls. And many challenges. The 2017 terrorist attacks, the Grenfell fire, difficult protests, the pandemic, the murder of serving officers. I’m incredibly proud of my team and all they have achieved.

‘Since day one tackling violence in all its forms has been my number one priority. We continue to see teenagers murdered on our streets and every attack is a tragedy.

‘But we are delivering and overall violence is down. The Met is bucking the national trend. We are achieving remarkable results in key areas of violence, with thousands of fewer victims of knife crime, robbery and other attacks.

‘I leave a Met that is growing and will soon record the largest ever number of officers. London is becoming safer. These great people include more women than ever in every rank and role and an increasing number from a broad range of ethnic backgrounds that truly reflect the diversity of London.

‘This Met is looking to the future and is ready for threats to come. Officers are better equipped and better informed as we take advantage of mobile and other technologies and forensic capabilities, and introduce better uniform and safety equipment.

‘We are delivering enormous transformational change, improving our systems and trialling innovative and state-of-the-art technology including live facial recognition and faster ways to capture and examine digital information.

‘Our counter terrorism capability is world leading. Last year I was extremely proud to see the first phase of the Counter Terrorism Operations Centre bringing all agencies together in one place as we adapt to the evolving threat.

‘This is the Met where every hour of every day our people perform heroic acts to protect the public. We are more accountable, more transparent and more open than ever – with deeper links to our communities.

‘The murder of Sarah Everard and many other awful cases recently have, I know, damaged confidence in this fantastic police service. 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.

‘Thank you to everyone in the Met and those who work with us for the extraordinary efforts you make each and every day. The public depend on you, for your professionalism, courage, compassion and integrity. You make a huge difference to people’s lives every day. I salute you.’

In a statement, Mr Khan said: ‘Last week, I made clear to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the scale of the change I believe is urgently required to rebuild the trust and confidence of Londoners in the Met and to root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny that still exists. I am not satisfied with the Commissioner’s response. 

‘On being informed of this, Dame Cressida Dick has said she will be standing aside. It’s clear that the only way to start to deliver the scale of the change required is to have new leadership right at the top of the Metropolitan Police.

‘I would like to thank Dame Cressida Dick for her 40 years of dedicated public service, with the vast majority spent at the Met where she was the first woman to become Commissioner. In particular, I commend her for the recent work in helping us to bring down violent crime in London — although of course there is more to do.

‘I want to put on the record again that there are thousands of incredibly brave and decent police officers at the Met who go above and beyond every day to help keep us safe, and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

‘I will now work closely with the Home Secretary on the appointment of a new Commissioner so that we can move quickly to restore trust in the capital’s police service while keeping London safe.’

Home Secretary Priti Patel said: ‘I’d like to thank Dame Cressida for the nearly four decades of her life that she has devoted to serving the public, latterly as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

‘She would be the first to say that she has held the role during challenging times; yet for nearly five years she has undertaken her duties with a steadfast dedication to protecting our capital city and its people, including during the unprecedented period of the pandemic.

‘Leading the Met has also involved driving our national counter terrorism capability at a time of multiple threats while, as the first woman to hold the post, she has exemplified the increasingly diverse nature of our police and demonstrated that all can aspire to hold leadership roles in policing in this country today.’

Reacting to her resignation, Ken Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said Dame Cressida has been treated in a ‘wholly unfair’ way.

‘We are deeply saddened by the resignation of our commissioner,’ he said.

‘She was much loved across the rank and file of the Metropolitan Police Service. 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.’

Sir Ed said in a statement: ‘Boris Johnson must have no role in choosing Cressida Dick’s successor to lead the Met. A man under criminal investigation by the Met should not be able to choose who’s in charge of it.

‘I would like to thank Cressida Dick for her years of dedicated police service, but a change of leadership in the Met is long overdue.

‘Met police officers who work incredibly hard and risk their lives to keep us safe deserve better. They urgently need new leadership that will change the culture and rebuild the public trust and confidence that officers need to do their jobs and keep us all safe.

‘No one handpicked by Boris Johnson would have the credibility needed for this big and important task. There must be no interference from Number 10 in the appointment and Boris Johnson should publicly recuse himself from this decision.’

As Scotland Yard chief, Dame Cressida has managed to find a way to ride-out the controversies which have mounted up across her 40-year career — in turn winning praise for her resilience and even earning the nickname ‘Comeback Cressida’ in some circles.

An independent panel on the death of private investigator Daniel Morgan found that the Met had prioritised its reputation over finding Mr Morgan’s killer — sparking allegations of institutional corruption in Scotland Yard.

In its bombshell report, the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel concluded forms of police corruption had hampered both the murder inquiry, and its own work to investigate the reasons why the case was never solved. Singling out Dame Cressida for blame, the report said she had not given a ‘reasonable explanation’ for blocking access to computer data and delaying the release of files, the last of which were provided only in March.

A Home Office source said there were ‘serious concerns with the Met’s leadership and how it responded to failings’ — although Miss Patel and Boris Johnson later expressed confidence in Dame Cressida.

The commissioner apologised for past mistakes, saying: ‘It is a matter of great regret that no one has been brought to justice and that our mistakes have compounded the pain suffered by Daniel’s family. For that I apologise again now.

‘I have been personally determined that the Met provided the panel with the fullest level of co-operation in an open and transparent manner, with complete integrity at all times.’

But amid calls for her resignation at the time, Dame Cressida said: ‘I don’t believe we are institutionally corrupt. No, I don’t accept that. I have the deepest feelings for Daniel Morgan’s family. They have shown extraordinary grit and determination and courage.

‘Yesterday, I apologised again to them for our failings and the fact that we have not brought anybody to justice despite six investigations and countless other reviews and pieces of work.’

She added: ‘And for the fact that, in so doing and along the way, we have clearly, we the Met, my force, of which I’m very proud to be the Commissioner, we have caused them extra anguish. But I don’t accept that we are institutionally corrupt, no.’ 

The independent panel led by Baroness Nuala O’Loan found that the Met had put protecting its own reputation above finding Mr Morgan’s killer.

The panel’s report said: ‘Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.’

Dame Cressida also came under the spotlight after it emerged that bosses at Scotland Yard missed three crucial clues about killer cop Couzens that could have seen him kicked out of the force before he murdered Miss Everard.

Couzens, who kidnapped, raped and murdered the marketing executive while she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, was reported to bosses for allegedly slapping a female colleague’s bottom at Bromley police station in 2018 — just weeks after he joined the force.

Shortly after starting at Bromley in South London, the married killer allegedly stopped a female motorist and said her tax and insurance were out of date before making a note of her address so he could later pull up outside her house and leer at her. 

Couzens, whose former colleagues at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary nicknamed him ‘The Rapist’ because of how he is said to have made female colleagues uneasy, is also accused of parking his patrol car by schools so he could watch mothers and sixth-formers.

Mr Khan put Dame Cressida ‘on notice’ last week following the exposure of sickening messages about rape, ‘killing black children’, and ‘f****** gays’. 

He said anyone ‘who has views or believes that it’s acceptable to behave in a way that’s racist, sexist, homophobic, in a discriminatory manner, does not belong in the police service’.

Fourteen officers were investigated by the watchdog, of whom two were found to have a case to answer for gross misconduct. One was sacked and another resigned before he would have been dismissed. Nine remain serving officers, while another is working as a contractor in a staff role.

Asked if all of those involved in the Charing Cross incident should be sacked, Mr Khan told Today: ‘I think Londoners can’t understand why nine of these 14 police officers are still serving. I’ve asked that question.’

He also told the programme: ‘And by the way, I only discovered last week that two of them have been promoted.’

One of the officers disciplined for their behaviour has since been promoted from the rank of constable to sergeant, it emerged last week. She was found to have committed misconduct for failing to report wrongdoing, yet the Met told the Guardian the promotion went ahead anyway, telling the paper that the officer ‘attended a misconduct meeting and was given management action/advice about reporting wrongdoing’.

Another officer, whose disturbing messages formed part of the inquiry, threatened to murder a female colleague while under investigation for sexually harassing her.

James McLoughlin-Goodchild, a PC at Charing Cross, threatened to stab the woman and two other officers if they came to arrest him during a phone call with a sergeant to discuss an upcoming gross misconduct hearing.

A trial heard he said: ‘I will kill them, I will murder them if I see them, I know where they live and what cars they drive. If they come to my home and arrest me they are going to get stabbed. I will not go to prison alive.’

The officer was found guilty of sending an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing communication after a trial at Hendon Magistrates Court in January 2019. He was handed a 12-month conditional discharge and an indefinite restraining order.

Meanwhile, new damning claims emerged last week about the behaviour of officers at Charing Cross, including allegations they slept with female suspects and called black colleagues ‘monkeys’.

A ‘toxic’ culture existed at the station dating back to 2006, said the former constable, who asked to be referred to by her first name, Liz.

The ex-officer said there was an ‘awful’ atmosphere at the station where men had sex with women in bathrooms, ‘mercilessly bullied’ a colleague and made ‘cruel and sexual comments’ about women in the street while senior leaders stayed silent.

She said her male colleagues were like ‘kids in a candy store’ given the station’s proximity to ‘pubs, bars and party culture’, with one sergeant bragging about seeing his favourite Russian escort at Spearmint Rhino.

The IOPC watchdog said it would look into the shocking allegations. An officer who gave only her first name, Liz, told LondonWorld she witnessed appalling behaviour by male cops after graduating from Hendon Police College in the mid-noughties.

She moved to another station in a different borough after two years and is now a writer living in Perth, Australia. She says she saw officers having sex down the station, caught a male cop in the act with someone he had arrested and she was victim to ‘countless propositioning from male colleagues’.

As the only woman in her team, she had to endure a night out at the Spearmint Rhino strip club where a sergeant bragged about having ‘his favourite Russian girl’.

On one occasion, she was sat in a carrier vehicle in Whitehall when all the male officers made lewd sexual comments about every woman that walked past.

Black officers were referred to as ‘monkeys’ and officers said ‘they better smile at night or we won’t see them’.

An autistic police community support officer was mercilessly bullied and ‘mindf***ed’ until he thought it was all part of him being ‘part of the team’, she claimed. She said she knew the behaviour was wrong but did not know who to turn to, fearing bosses would turn a blind eye and she would be ostracised by colleagues.