Met chief is urged to quit after Beech report
Police Commissioner ‘in serious jeopardy’ after catalogue of blunders overseeing Operation Midland
Dame Cressida Dick, the head of Scotland Yard, is under pressure over her future today as a report accuses the Metropolitan Police of ignoring the blunders exposed during its Operation Midland investigation. Inspectors found that senior officers were more interested in protecting the reputation of the force than learning from the episode, in which the reputations of several high-profile figures were traduced during the investigation into false claims by the fantasist Carl Beech.
Martin Evans, Robert Mendick
Charles Hymas
DAME CRESSIDA DICK is under mounting pressure after a damning report, published today, accuses Scotland Yard of ignoring the catalogue of blunders exposed during its disastrous Operation Midland investigation.
Inspectors, who were ordered in by Priti Patel, found that senior officers were more interested in protecting the reputation of the force than learning from one of the Met’s most embarrassing episodes for decades.
Critics said the Met Commissioner’s position is now in real jeopardy after the report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) accused her force of waiting three years before acting on a series of urgent recommendations.
Scotland Yard spent more than £5 million and traduced the reputations of a string of high-profile public figures while investigating a series of fantastical allegations by the fantasist and paedophile Carl Beech.
After the investigation collapsed in 2016, Sir Richard Henriques, a retired High Court judge, carried out a review in which he identified 43 mistakes by the Met and made 25 urgent recommendations.
But the HMICFRS found the force, which Dame Cressida has headed up since April 2017, only began to act on the bulk of the recommendations last year, following the appointment of Ms Patel as Home Secretary.
Harvey Proctor, the former Tory MP, who was wrongly investigated for child abuse and murder, described the report as “devastating” and accused Dame Cressida of overseeing a “cover up”.
One very well-placed source involved in the HMICFRS inquiry added: “This report puts Cressida Dick’s position in serious jeopardy.” Another source said: “The Met, under Cressida Dick, has never fully owned up to its mistakes. It has all been smoke and mirrors as they desperately try to avoid taking responsibility for what went wrong.”
No officer has ever been held to account for the mistakes during Operation Midland, with Steve Rodhouse, who was in overall charge, allowed to take up a £250,000-a-year job with the National Crime Agency.
Other senior officers involved were allowed to retire on full pensions or were, in some cases, promoted.
Scotland Yard took three years to publish the unredacted Henriques report, with HMICFRS claiming senior officers were more interested in “restricting access than learning lessons from it”.
It was only in October last year that the force set up the Operation Larimer team in order to ensure a “robust” implementation of the Henriques recommendations. But the HMICFRS report said: “Some of what the Larimar team is now doing could and should have been done when the Henriques report was first published in 2016/17.”
In a statement yesterday, Ms Patel said: “It is essential that lessons are learned so that the failings in Operation Midland are not repeated.”
Dame Cressida said: “Operation Midland had a terrible impact on those who were falsely accused by Carl Beech. The previous Commissioner and I have apologised to them and I repeat that apology again today…
“In October 2019 I set up Operation Larimar, led by a senior officer reporting directly to me … The Inspectorate’s recognition of the comprehensive work under way should reassure everyone we have learnt the lessons from Operation Midland and the same mistakes would not be repeated.”
But Mr Proctor said Dame Cressida must now consider her position. He said: “Police officers who mess up and get things so seriously wrong, including the present Commissioner, should bear a personal responsibility for their wrong doing. They should not be promoted, pensioned off, ennobled and enriched. That is not the correct lesson that should be learnt from this dreadful scandal, the worst in living memory of the police.”