Cressida put on notice
Khan’s warning for Met’s scandal-hit top cop... but what took him so long?
CRESSIDA Dick could be ousted within days if she doesn’t tackle ‘shattered’ confidence in Scotland Yard, Sadiq Khan said yesterday as he put her ‘on notice’.
The London Mayor delivered a brutal ultimatum to the beleaguered Metropolitan Police commissioner, warning that she has just ‘days or weeks’ to save her job by coming up with a plan to clean up a toxic ‘culture’ in the force.
His damning indictment of Britain’s most senior police officer raises the prospect she could be forced out of the role in the same way as Sir Ian Blair was soon after Boris Johnson became London mayor.
Lord Blair was forced to quit following a damning inquest into the fatal shooting of electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, who was mistaken for a terrorist in 2005. Dame Cressida was the gold commander in the control room during the operation that led to Mr de Menezes’ death. Home Office sources said yesterday the commissioner’s position would be ‘untenable’ without Mr Khan’s backing.
Dame Cressida has come under mounting pressure following a string of scandals – from the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, to the revelation that 14 officers at Charing Cross police station shared sickening jokes about rape, domestic violence, the Holocaust and killing black children.
Mr Khan said he was ‘disgusted’ that nine out of the 14 officers exposed by the police watchdog last week were still in their posts and two had even been promoted.
He believes the culprits should have been sacked and suggested Dame Cressida’s failure to tackle the problem during a 90-minute discussion last week had left her career hanging in the balance.
The mayor said the blunders were ‘not historic or isolated’ and must be tackled now: ‘What we have seen too often are examples of racism, misogyny, sexism, discrimination and the like.
‘I have been quite clear to the commissioner: my expectation is the next time I see her I want to see what her response is to the examples not of one officer, of 14 officers being involved in racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic and the like behaviour, nine of whom are still serving. Secondly, what her
‘I’m disgusted and angry’
plans are to win back the trust and confidence that’s been both been knocked and shattered as a consequence.’
When asked if Dame Cressida still had his trust, Mr Khan said: ‘That will be contingent upon the response from the commissioner the next time I see her. If it is the case that I no longer have trust and confidence in anybody who works for me, I’ll make that quite clear and take action.’
He added: ‘I’m not somebody who is easily disgusted or someone who will get angry easily. I’m both disgusted and angry at what we have seen over the last two weeks.’
Home Office sources said Mr Khan appeared to be ‘rolling the pitch’ for withdrawing support for Dame Cressida later this month. One said: ‘Sadiq Khan is the police and crime commissioner for London. If he says he has no confidence in her... her position is untenable.’
Dame Cressida’s contract was given a two-year extension only last September, with Mr Khan saying at the time: ‘This will provide the experienced and strong leadership we need as our city emerges from the pandemic.’ Susan Hall, chairman of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee said: ‘Sadiq Khan knew about all of these scandals when he signed off on her contract a few weeks ago.
‘He knows he is in trouble so he is trying to deflect some of that heat.’
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england is poised to lead the world in regaining our freedoms.
From this final unshackling, everything flows. Businesses can boom. We can begin tackling our eye-watering pandemic debts. Children’s education and GPs’ surgeries will no longer be disrupted.
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Our jabs programme has been worldbeating. So was the booster rollout. Mr Johnson defied apocalyptic warnings to reopen in July. And rejecting lockdown as Omicron surged was a masterstroke.
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With the terror threat dropping and UK scientists making a major breakthrough in fusion technology – moving a step closer to the holy grail of energy generation – the good news has truly come in threes.