Baroness Casey’s report into the Metropolitan Police undoubtedly makes for grim reading. Clearly, as Keir Starmer points out this morning, the force needs urgent reform, and “the scale of change required is vast“. He also takes the opportunity to attack Suella Braverman and the Home Office for 13 years of “a void of leadership”. Who led the Metropolitan police from 2017 to 2022, when trust in the police nosedived according to Casey’s report? Cressida Dick.

This would be the same Cressida Dick who, after the full scale of the Force’s failure over Sarah Everard’s murder was revealed, still enjoyed Sir Keir’s support right up to the end of 2021. In October of that year, Starmer appeared on Good Morning Britain to back her as Met Commissioner:

“I’ve worked with Cressida over many years in relation to some very serious operations when I was Director of Public Prosecutions, and I was pleased that her contract was extended and I support her.”

Now Captain Hindsight strokes his chin and claims Labour would fix all this. He’s also staying quiet on the leadership of Sadiq Khan, who as Mayor of London has had the primary responsibilty for the Metropolitan Police during the period when the public most lost confidence. Wonder why…

UPDATE: Starmer says he had confidence in Cressida “because [he] wanted her to start the work turning this around…”

Stopping short of saying it was a mistake…

Sadiq Khan has been summonsed to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, to answer questions on the Winsor Review. The report, published last month, investigated the circumstances around Cressida Dick’s sacking. It found Sadiq committed an “abuse of power” and that the Met Commissioner had been “intimidated” and faced “political pressure“. Even worse for Sadiq, if he fails to attend the committee he could face up to 3 months in prison.

Susan Hall AM, Chairman of the Police and Crime Committee, added:

“The Sir Tom Winsor review has raised important questions about the circumstances under which the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner stood down. The London Assembly Police and Crime Committee has statutory powers to summons the Mayor, which we have used for the first time today. We believe that given the seriousness of the review’s findings, the Mayor needs to address the unanswered questions that have emerged.”

Sadiq is being summonsed under Section 33 of the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011. It’s the first time this has been used on a sitting mayor. When it comes to London crime, it seems Sadiq is leading by example…

While she may be on her way out, there are still plenty of opportunities for Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick to show off her PR skills. Take this incident recorded by Big Brother Watch yesterday when the Metropolitan Police tried showing off their new facial recognition system, another civil liberties slow-motion car crash visible from space. When the civil liberties group caught word of the photoshoot they popped over to ask Dick some questions about the system, not least the impending mass-privacy breach. Her defence? They’re a “great bit of technology”, however “nobody’s privacy was intruded on” that afternoon since they hadn’t actually managed to get the cameras working…

When challenged by Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo about the 95% rate of misidentification by the technology, the Commissioner loftily replied that she was “not going to get into the debate about 95%” as “that’s not the position we have”. The final straw came when she was asked by a campaigner about the cameras working even more poorly with women and people of colour. Asked what she’d say to the innocent young black boy who had been wrongly flagged by facial recognition cameras as a wanted criminal last month, Dame Cressida didn’t respond and promptly walked off…

Statement from Commissioner Cressida Dick:

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.

At his request, I have agreed to stay on for a short period to ensure the stability of the Met and its leadership while arrangements are made for a transition to a new Commissioner.

Undertaking this role as a servant of the people of London and the UK has been the greatest honour and privilege of my life.

Throughout my career I have sought to protect the people of this wonderful thriving and diverse city.

There have been many tough calls. And many challenges. The 2017 terrorist attacks, the Grenfell fire, difficult protests, the pandemic, the murder of serving officers.

I’m incredibly proud of my team and all they have achieved.

Since day one tackling violence in all its forms has been my number one priority. We continue to see teenagers murdered on our streets and every attack is a tragedy.

But we are delivering and overall violence is down. The Met is bucking the national trend. We are achieving remarkable results in key areas of violence, with thousands of fewer victims of knife crime, robbery and other attacks.

I leave a Met that is growing and will soon record the largest ever number of officers. London is becoming safer. These great people include more women than ever in every rank and role and an increasing number from a broad range of ethnic backgrounds that truly reflect the diversity of London.

This Met is looking to the future and is ready for threats to come. Officers are better equipped and better informed as we take advantage of mobile and other technologies and forensic capabilities, and introduce better uniform and safety equipment.

We are delivering enormous transformational change, improving our systems and trialling innovative and state-of-the-art technology including live facial recognition and faster ways to capture and examine digital information.

Our counter terrorism capability is world leading. Last year I was extremely proud to see the first phase of the Counter Terrorism Operations Centre bringing all agencies together in one place as we adapt to the evolving threat.

This is the Met where every hour of every day our people perform heroic acts to protect the public. We are more accountable, more transparent and more open than ever – with deeper links to our communities.

The murder of Sarah Everard and many other awful cases recently have, I know, damaged confidence in this fantastic police service. There is much to do – and I know that the Met has turned its full attention to rebuilding public trust and confidence. For that reason I am very optimistic about the future for the Met and for London.

Thank you to everyone in the Met and those who work with us for the extraordinary efforts you make each and every day. The public depend on you, for your professionalism, courage, compassion and integrity. You make a huge difference to people’s lives every day. I salute you.

Seven hours ago she said she had “no intention” of going…

UPDATE: Sadiq statement

“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.”

Cressida Dick to the London Assembly…

“As a result of the information provided by the Cabinet Office inquiry team and my officers own I can confirm the Met are investigating a number of offences that took place in Downing St and Whitehall over the past 2 years that appear to have breached regulations.”

Dick confirms Guido’s exclusive as per 40 minutes ago – the Met are launching an investigation into a number of Downing Street parties. Gray says the reason for investigation is three-fold:

• Those breaking the rules should have been aware of the rules
• Not investigating would undermine the legitimacy of the law
• Where there is little ambiguity around the absence of any reasonable defence

She goes on to inform the committee that as a result of information provided by the Cabinet Office, and as a result of the Met’s own inquiries, the Met is now investigating a number of events.

She says that fixed penalty notices may not be issued to every person involved, and they won’t give a running commentary. Whether this pauses Sue Gray’s investigation, No. 10 are yet to comment…