Met chief apologises for Team GB car stop
METROPOLITAN Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has apologised to Team GB athlete Bianca Williams for the ‘distress’ caused by a stop and search after claims the incident was racially motivated.
Dame Cressida said two officers ‘spoke on our behalf’ to Ms Williams and she repeated the apology during questioning by MPs yesterday.
A video of the incident – showing the sprinter and her partner Ricardo dos Santos being pulled from their car in west London – was posted online by former Olympic medallist Linford Christie.
Ms Williams, 26, has accused officers of racially profiling her and Portuguese athlete dos Santos, 25, when they were handcuffed and separated from their three-month-old son.
Dame Cressida (pictured) told the home affairs select committee: ‘My senior officer has said... I’m sorry to Ms Williams for the distress it has clearly caused her, and I say that, too.
‘So, if there are lessons to be learned from it, we will learn them, and I’m looking at handcuffing as a specific issue.’
Reviews of the evidence by two separate teams have found no apparent misconduct, the commissioner said. But she explained a voluntary referral had been made to the Independent Office for Police Conduct because of ‘the level of public concern’.