Met: We won’t believe all victims

SCOTLAND Yard is to abandon its policy of automatically believing victims following a series of deeply flawed sex crime inquiries, it was reported last night.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said officers must investigate rather than blindly believe an allegation, and should keep an open mind when a victim has come forward.

‘It is very important to victims to feel that they are going to be believed,’ she told The Times.

‘Our default position is we are, of course, likely to believe you, but we are investigators and we have to investigate.’

Guidelines that instructed officers to believe alleged victims automatically were put in place following revelations in 2011 that abuse accusations – including those made against Jimmy Savile – had not been investigated properly. The policy was aimed at encouraging people to come forward with the confidence that their claims would be taken seriously.

The Met faced fierce criticism, however, after it declared that uncorroborated allegations about a Westminster sex abuse ring from a man known only as ‘Nick’ were ‘credible and true’. The Crown Prosecution Service is now considering whether to charge Nick for perverting the course of justice after the claims were found to be false.

‘I arrived saying very clearly to my people that we should have an open mind, of course, when a person walks in,’ Miss Dick said.

‘We should treat them with dignity and respect and we should listen to them. From that moment on we are investigators.’