Dame Cressida Dick resigns

Dame Cressida Dick has resigned.

The news comes just hours after she insisted she would not be stepping away from the role.

It follows a number of recent difficulties, including the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer.

In a statement, London Mayor Sadiq 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.”

Dame Cressida will continue to serve for a short period to enable an orderly handover.

In a statement she described the role as being the 'greatest honour and privilege of her life', but said she no longer had a choice but to step aside.

"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.

At his request, I have agreed to stay on for a short period to ensure the stability of the Met and its leadership while arrangements are made for a transition to a new Commissioner.

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."

Following Dame Cressida's resignation, the Home Secretary Priti Patel thanked her for 'steadfast dedication'.

“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.”

Responding to the news that Dame Cressida Dick is to step aside as Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Chairman of the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Susan Hall AM said:

“Today the London Assembly agreed a unanimous motion calling on the Mayor to clarify what he meant when he said the Commissioner had been put “on notice“. We no longer need that clarification – but we do need an urgent plan of action to heal recent wounds.

"There is a crisis of confidence in the Metropolitan Police and it’s vital that the next Commissioner gets to grips with addressing these issues.

“The London Assembly Police and Crime Committee would like to put on record our thanks to Dame Cressida Dick for her 40 years of service.

“In her role as Commissioner, she has played an important part in our scrutiny work by regularly taking questions from Assembly Members on how the force is working to keep Londoners safe.

“We look forward to working with the new Commissioner when they are appointed and continuing the important work of holding the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime to account.”

Yvette Cooper MP, Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary, responding to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick’s resignation, said:

“The Mayor of London is right to insist on reforms to the Metropolitan Police and he has shown leadership in addressing this. I thank Cressida Dick for her many years of public service including her work on counter-terrorism and tackling violence in the capital.

“Reforms are needed to rebuild public confidence in the Metropolitan Police after recent cases. Every day the police do incredibly important work, in London and across the country to keep us all safe and trust in that good work must not be undermined by cultural failures or delays in tackling officers who abuse their positions.

“This isn’t just an issue for London - the Home Secretary must support reforms to raise standards across the country to support the essential work the police do."

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