MET CHIEF: I’M GOING NOWHERE
SHE DEFENDS FORCE OVER SARAH VIGIL CHAOS DESPITE CALLS FOR HER TO QUIT
BRITAIN’S top police officer has defied calls to quit after her officers clashed with women amid chaotic scenes at a vigil for Sarah Everard. After crisis talks with the prime minister, home secretary and the mayor of London, Dame Cressida Dick insisted: ‘It’s fiendishly difficult policing, that’s why it needs a cold light of day sober review.’ She said she would have even been at the vigil – ‘if it had been lawful’. Priti Patel yesterday ordered a watchdog to investigate – the fourth probe so far into the handling of the case by Dame Cressida’s force. Met officer PC Wayne Couzens is charged with the kidnap and murder of marketing executive Sarah, last seen in Clapham on March 3. Saturday’s #ReclaimThese Streets vigil at Clapham Common was banned by the Met, citing Covid restrictions on outdoor gatherings. Organisers failed in a high court bid to overrule them. The
Duchess of Cambridge was among those who went to lay flowers. But later – with none of the planned stewards to help social distancing or a PA system for 1,500 people who turned up – police blocked access. Scuffles broke out as darkness fell, with protesters chanting ‘Shame on you’ as four were arrested.
Dame Cressida insisted: ‘I understand why so many people wanted to come and pay their respects. Indeed, if it had been lawful, I’d have been there, I’d have been at a vigil. Six hours was really calm and peaceful, very few police officers around, respectful, people laying flowers, not gathering, and a vigil that did not breach regulations.
‘I don’t think anyone should sit in an armchair saying that was done badly without understanding what was going through the minds of my officers.’
But Lib Dem leader Ed Davey led calls for her to go, saying the scenes were ‘utterly disgraceful and shame the Metropolitan police’.
London mayor Sadiq Khan met Dame Cressida yesterday but said: ‘I received assurances from the Met last week that the vigil would be policed sensitively. In my view, this was not the case.’
Victims commissioner Dame Vera Baird called the scenes ‘quasi military’, and ‘a dreadful piece of misjudgement’.
Shadow domestic violence minister Jess Phillips said: ‘Police put their foot down before they put the boot in. At every stage they made the wrong call.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called the images ‘deeply disturbing’ but did not call for Dame Cressida’s resignation.
Priti Patel has asked Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary to investigate the ‘upsetting’ footage.
A spokesman said she ‘read the report provided by the Met and feels there are still questions to be answered’. Asked if she still had confidence in Dame Cressida, he said: ‘That’s not something I’m able to comment on at the moment.’
PM Boris Johnson last night said he was ‘deeply concerned’ and will chair a crime and justice task-force meeting today. Dame Cressida is likely to attend. He said Sarah’s killing ‘must unite us in determination to drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system protect and defend them.’
Last night, hundreds of protesters staged a sit-down in Parliament Square. As darkness fell, some left while others marched to Downing Street holding candles or phone lights. The Met is also being investigated over how it handled claims of indecent exposure against Couzens days before Sarah vanished, its initial missing persons inquiry and how he got head injuries while in police custody.
Dame Cressida became the first woman in the top role in 2017, despite overseeing the anti-terror operation that led to the wrongful police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes on a London Underground train in 2005.
How utterly distressing and upsetting to see what happened at the vigil in South London on Saturday night. Our thoughts now should be about poor Sarah Everard, whose death this was all about. But now we’re seeing pictures and video of policemen and protesters like this. Someone has misread the mood here. With so much anger and fear about, any police response that looked even a bit heavy-handed was never going to end well.