LONDON:(WN)-When Cressida Dick left Scotland
Yard three years ago, she said she hoped that one day a woman would lead
Britain’s biggest police force to show that it was “modern and representative.”On
Wednesday, those hopes were realized when Ms. Dick herself was named the first
female police commissioner in Scotland Yard’s 188-year-history.
A onetime beat cop in London’s West End, Ms.
Dick, 56, said she was “thrilled and humbled” by the appointment. “This is a
great responsibility and an amazing opportunity,” she said Wednesday in a
statement. “I’m looking forward immensely to protecting and serving the people
of London.”
Founded in 1829, Scotland Yard, as the city’s
Metropolitan Police Service is known, is the recipient of roughly a quarter of
all police spending in England and Wales. (Scotland and Northern Ireland, the
other two nations in the United Kingdom, have their own legal systems and
police forces.)
The daughter of Oxford academics and a
graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge, Ms. Dick was head of counterterrorism at
Scotland Yard from 2011 to 2014, overseeing among other things the security
operation for the London Olympics in 2012.
She left Scotland Yard in 2014 after 31 years
to become general secretary at the foreign office. Ms. Dick has held command
roles in several counterterrorism operations; one operation went terribly wrong
in 2005: She was the senior officer in charge when Jean Charles de Menezes, 27,
a Brazilian who had been mistakenly identified as an attempted suicide bomber,
was fatally shot by officers at a London subway station.
A jury cleared her of any wrongdoing, but Ms.
Dick has repeatedly expressed regret. “I think about what happened on that
terrible day very, very often,” she said in 2014. During the search for a new
commissioner, the family of Mr. de Menezes wrote a letter to London’s mayor,
Sadiq Khan, about Ms. Dick’s potential role. “We have serious concerns about
such an appointment and the signal it sends to the people of London,” they
wrote.
But Mr. Khan and others defended Ms. Dick’s
appointment. “This is a historic day for London and a proud day for me as
mayor,” he said Wednesday. Amber Rudd, the home secretary who appointed Ms.
Dick with Mr. Khan’s counsel, called her an “exceptional leader” and implicitly
highlighted her gender as a possible asset in some pressing issues facing
Scotland Yard.
“The challenges ahead include protecting the
most vulnerable, including victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence,” Ms.
Rudd said. “Cressida’s skills and insight will ensure the Metropolitan Police
adapt to the changing patterns of crime in the 21st century.”
Of the 43 police forces in England and Wales,
several have been led by women. But never London. Alex Carlile, a member of the
House of Lords, Britain’s upper chamber, who served as an independent reviewer
of terrorism legislation, said it was “a very positive thing” that Scotland
Yard had women in leadership roles. “But Cressida Dick has not been appointed
because she’s a woman,” he said. “She’s been appointed because she was the
pre-eminent person for the job.”
With Ms. Dick’s appointment, three of the
most senior figures in British policing are now women, with Lynne Owens heading
the National Crime Agency and Sara Thornton, one of Ms. Dick’s rivals for the
Scotland Yard job, the chairwoman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council.
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