Call me Cress! Scotland Yard boss is Vogue’s new pin-up

Cressida dick became the first female scotland Yard chief in april, and now she’s made history again as the first to pose for a glam photo shoot in fashion glossy Vogue.

Next to a smiley picture of Ms dick, 56, in her patrol uniform, wearing eye-liner, lipstick and a sleek hairstyle, she speaks about her life with her girlfriend, named only as ‘Helen’, who is a response-team leader at a south London police station.

‘Call me Cress, or Cressida,’ says the Met Commissioner, before talking about the day she was told of her appointment by Home secretary amber rudd: ‘it was very, very, very thrilling.’

‘Cress’, who discloses that she doesn’t eat meat, says of her girlfriend: ‘i rang her, and she said: “Oh, God, i’ve got to sit down.” she was at work.

‘The good thing was, we knew that if i got it, it would be fantastic and we’d thought through how life would be and it would be positive. But also, if i hadn’t got it, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.’

The photo shoot, for which a hair and make-up artist is credited, is for the final edition of Vogue edited by alexandra shulman, 59, who has left the magazine after 25 years.

‘i like the idea that people might be inspired by the fact that there’s somebody a bit different, a bit counter-cultural, a bit surprising [in charge],’ she says of her appointment.

in her spare time, the countercultural Ms dick says she enjoys soaking up a little culture by ‘stalking’ London art galleries with a long-standing artist friend. despite happily posing for Vogue, the daughter of two Oxford dons has so far declined to give a single sit-down interview to a specialist crime reporter. My man at the Yard remarks: ‘it’s the first time i’ve ever seen her in make-up.’ Cress first hit the headlines in 2005 as the officer in command of the operation which led to the fatal shooting of Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes. she was cleared of personal blame.

The Vogue feature will, surely, make her predecessor, sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, green with envy. The vain old booby was no stranger to a photo opportunity, whether in full dress uniform or on a horse.

Notoriously fastidious about his appearance, Hogan-Howe enjoyed the services of a valet, boasted of his fitness and lectured colleagues on how to polish their shoes.