Priti vows to tackle toxic2022 ‘Line of Duty’ culture festering at heart of Met
PRITI Patel has vowed to tackle the toxic ‘Line of Duty’ police culture that she believes has led to a dearth of quality candidates to lead Britain’s biggest force.
The Home Secretary has told friends that when she meets senior officers ‘they all seem to have known each other for about 30 years since they were all at training college together’, and the country ‘needs a wider range of backgrounds and talents being recruited into the forces’.
Dubbing it the ‘Line of Duty syndrome’ after the hit BBC1 drama about corrupt police officers, one friend said: ‘Priti has noted that even in 2022, the police all seem to look the same, have the same background and know each other.’
The Home Secretary was furious at being ‘blindsided’ by London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ousting of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick last week, but shares his concerns about her abilities.
In the short term, however, Ms
Patel felt there was no viable replacement, explaining why Dame Cressida had been given a two-year contract extension.
The commissioner’s resignation on Thursday came after Mr Khan expressed his dissatisfaction with her proposals to clean up the forces’s toxic culture, exemplified by officers at Charing Cross station, who joked in text messages between 2016 and 2018 about rape, domestic violence and killing black children.
A damning report into their behaviour followed scandals including the murder last year of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, an armed diplomatic protection group officer.
On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday, Mr Khan put Dame Cressida ‘on notice’ that she had only ‘days and weeks’ to get a grip. The Met chief defiantly told LBC Radio at 11am the following day that she had ‘absolutely no intention’ of standing down, only to announce her resignation just five-and-ahalf hours later.
Last night Mr Khan suggested he had intended for Dame Cressida to resign and had felt a ‘duty to act decisively’.
Writing in the Observer, the Mayor said: ‘It has become crystal-clear that there are deep cultural issues within the Met.
‘It’s my job as Mayor to hold the police to account on behalf of Londoners, so it was my duty to act decisively as soon as I concluded that the only way we were going to start seeing the level of change urgently required was with new leadership right at the top of the Met.’
Mr Khan added that Dame Cressida’s successor would have to tackle cultural problems that had ‘shattered’ public trust in the force.
Dame Cressida is expected to remain commissioner while her successor is sought and the police investigation into lockdown parties at Downing Street is concluded.
But the terms of her severance deal are under scrutiny. Her twoyear extension was due to begin in April and would have earned her a salary totalling almost £500,000.
Mr Khan is understood to want to avoid paying that, but lawyers believe Dame Cressida – who will leave the force with a £160,000-a-year gold-plated pension – could have a case for constructive dismissal against the Mayor.
Employment lawyer David Gordon, of DG Law, said: ‘Her argument could be that she was forced into this situation and it wasn’t a choice she wanted to make.’
‘Deep cultural issues within the Met force’