White feather for ‘coward’ who locked himself in car
A POLICE chief nicknamed ‘Commissioner Coward’ for failing to help an officer murdered in the Westminster terror attack was mocked yesterday with an image of a white feather.
Internet users shared a doctored image of Sir Craig Mackey holding his knighthood in which a white feather had replaced the gong.
A white feather was used in Victorian times and during the First World War as a symbol of cowardice.
The image of the Scotland Yard Deputy Commissioner, knighted in the New Year’s honours list, went viral online.
Sir Craig, 56, who was Scotland Yard’s acting commissioner at the time of the attack, was widely criticised on internet forums, with some nicknaming him ‘Commissioner Coward’, and he was also facing mounting pressure to quit.
On Monday he told the Old Bailey inquest that he locked himself in his car after seeing PC Keith Palmer being stabbed outside Parliament by Khalid Masood.
Sir Craig, who had been visiting a minister at Parliament, described the terrorist as a ‘clear threat’ but chose not to get out of his car and get involved in helping the injured officer. Instead, he decided to lock the doors of his vehicle and then took orders from a police constable, who told him to ‘make safe’ and ‘go’. He said no-one in his car had any protective gear or a radio.
Yesterday Sir Craig came under fire from former Metropolitan Police detective Peter Bleksley, who was stabbed when raiding a drug dealer’s flat.
Mr Bleksley, who now fronts the Channel 4 show Hunted, told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘His actions that day were utterly unforgivable. A police officer’s natural instinct – when you see a colleague being stabbed – is to get out and help him first and foremost. Always... unmistakeably. Policing is a family, it’s a collective – it’s that thin blue line.’
Mr Bleksley contrasted Sir Craig’s actions with those of off-duty PC Charlie Guenigault, who was stabbed five times after tackling jihadis during the London Bridge attacks in June last year. Sir Craig, who earned more than £270,000 a year as acting commissioner, is expected to retire in December.