Met chief defends Westminster officer
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, yesterday said that the criticism of Sir Craig Mackey for his failure to act during the Westminster terror attack was “ignorant” and “wrong”. Sir Craig has faced accusations of cowardice after he told an inquest that he locked himself in his car during Khalid Masood’s attack last year. Ms Dick said: “Sir Craig had absolutely no opportunity to stop the killer… anyone who suggests otherwise is simply wrong.”
CRESSIDA DICK, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has defended the actions of Sir Craig Mackey, her deputy, during the Westminster terror attack, insisting criticism of his failure to act was “ignorant” and “wrong”.
Sir Craig faced accusations of cowardice and even calls for his knighthood to be stripped after he told an inquest that he locked himself in his car during Khalid Masood’s murderous rampage last year.
But Mark Lucraft QC, the chief coroner, said Sir Craig’s actions were “sensible and proper” and he could have done nothing to prevent the tragedy.
Masood killed four pedestrians and seriously injured 29 by ramming them with a hired SUV on Westminster Bridge. He then stabbed Pc Keith Palmer to death outside the Houses of Parliament before a police officer shot him dead.
The inquest heard that Sir Craig’s first instinct when he saw the attack was to get out of the car, but a uniformed officer told him to stay put because he had no protective equipment and would have been in the firing line.
After the inquest, Ms Dick said there had been an “extraordinary amount of confused, unpleasant, personalised and ignorant commentary by some on the actions of the deputy commissioner”. These criticisms were “simply not supported by the evidence”.
Ms Dick added: “Sir Craig had absolutely no opportunity to stop the killer or save Pc Palmer. Anyone who suggests otherwise is simply wrong. The actions he was able to and did take were to protect the unarmed police staff colleagues in the car with him. He went on to lead the Met’s response to the attack with distinction.”
Ms Dick’s comments were echoed by Neil Basu, Britain’s senior counter-terror officer, who said some of the criticism of his colleague was “abhorrent”.
Mr Basu said: “I had the advantage of overseeing this inquiry, and both I and the investigators know there is nothing that Sir Craig could have done.”
He said that if Sir Craig had got out of the car, he would have put himself in the police line of fire, thus preventing the shot that killed Masood, 52.
The Muslim convert carried out the 82-second attack on March 22 last year. A jury of seven men and four women at the inquest into his death took two hours and 22 minutes to decide that he was lawfully killed.
The attack killed Pc Palmer, 48, Kurt Cochran, 54, an American tourist, Leslie Rhodes, 75, a retired window cleaner, Aysha Frade, 44, a mother-oftwo, and Andreea Cristea, 31, a Romanian designer. Mr Lucraft found after an earlier inquest that Masood unlawfully killed them all.
The coroner said there were “shortcomings” in Palace security, and it was possible that Pc Palmer may not have died if armed officers had been posted near the Carriage Gates.
The Met “unreservedly” accepted his conclusions on security.