Met chief: I’ll have to cut beat bobbies without more cash
BRITAIN’S top police officer has warned she will be forced to pull bobbies from the beat unless the Government injects more money into fighting terrorism.
Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said counter-terror police were stretched by four atrocities, including two this month, bringing bloodshed to the UK’s streets.
Pointing out that the ‘world is now different’ since terror strikes in London and Manchester, the new Scotland Yard boss said some crime investigations had been put on the back-burner.
She said frontline numbers would fall and police stations close as forces could not ‘do everything’. Miss Dick has said she would ‘obviously’ be seeking extra funding from Home Secretary Amber Rudd.
Speaking to politicians at London’s City Hall for the first time since taking the top job in March, she said the terror attacks had diverted resources as officers painstakingly pieced together the deadly plots.
In a stark warning, Miss Dick said it was ‘inevitable’ that fewer officers woud be employed by the Met and some police services would be dropped – potentially compromising efforts to thwart future threats.
She said: ‘The counter-terrorism network is certainly stretched. They have now had four major attacks to deal with and also disrupted a number – five – of other plots.
‘Those all take a great deal of backwardlooking investigative resources and it takes potentially away from the proactive and forward-looking intelligence work.
‘It is inevitable that without further assistance our police officer numbers will drop.’
The Metropolitan Police, overseen by Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan, claims it faces £400million of budget ‘pressures’, suggesting they are equivalent to further cuts. It says that on top of reductions totalling £600million as a result of austerity, these will lead to wholesale changes to everyday policing.
The Home Office is also being pressed to scrap a shake-up of the police funding formula after warnings that further budget cuts in Britain’s biggest force would put London’s security at risk of a terror atrocity.
Meanwhile, Britain’s most senior counterterror officer has delivered a stark warning to ministers over the impact on forces as they attempt to contain the unprecedented threat. Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley suggested other policing priorities in England and Wales could be at ‘significant’ risk if resources are diverted to fight terrorism.
In a letter to the Home Secretary sent a week before the Finsbury Park attack, he also warned that the counter-terror policing network was not able to operate at ‘full strength’. The Home Office said the Government had protected overall police funding in real terms, provided £144million to increase armed policing capability and funding for an additional 1,900 officers at security and intelligence agencies.
Spending on counter-terrorism is also rising from £11.7billion to £15.1billion by the end of the decade.
Miss Dick said lorry and van hire may need regulation in the wake of the terror strikes to stop extremists hiring heavy vehicles for use as deadly weapons.