Cressida Dick steps down as Met Police Commissioner

It has been agreed that the senior officer, who was born and raised in Oxford and in the late 1990s was a Thames Valley Police superintendent and area commander for the city, will continue to serve for a short period to enable an orderly handover.

In a statement, Dame Cressida said: "It is with huge sadness that following contact with the Mayor of London today, it is clear that the Mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue.

"He has left me no choice but to step aside as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service."

Hours earlier, when asked by the BBC if she should step down she said: "I have absolutely no intention of going and I believe that I am and have been, actually for the last five years, leading a real transformation in the Met.

Born in Oxford to a Balliol College don, Dame Cressida studied at Oxford High School before reading Agriculture and Forest Sciences at Balliol.

She joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable in 1983 and transferred to Thames Valley Police in 1995. The senior officer was area commander for Oxford city until 2000. She returned to the Met in 2001.

File photo of former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Picture: Victoria Jones/PA Wire

The news of her resignation comes a week after London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was ‘not satisfied’ with the Met's Commissioner's response to calls for change following a series of scandals including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens, racist and misogynist and homophobic messages exchanged by officers shared by officers at Charing Cross Police Station.

He said this evening: "Last week, I made clear to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner the scale of the change I believe is urgently required to rebuild the trust and confidence of Londoners in the Met and to root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny that still exists.

"I am not satisfied with the Commissioner's response.

"On being informed of this, Dame Cressida Dick has said she will be standing aside. It's clear that the only way to start to deliver the scale of the change required is to have new leadership right at the top of the Metropolitan Police."

He added: "I will now work closely with the Home Secretary on the appointment of a new Commissioner so that we can move quickly to restore trust in the capital's police service while keeping London safe."

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