Scotland Yard is still in the grip of a crisis of confidence following the publication of a report denouncing racist, misogynistic and discriminatory behavior in its ranks. It is in this context that the chief commissioner of the London police, Cressida Dick, announced her resignation on Thursday evening February 10.
Pushed out by the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, Mme dick estimated in a statement that it had no “no choice but to resign”. “It is clear that the mayor no longer has the necessary confidence in my direction for me to continue”, she said, specifying that she would remain in her post until her successor is appointed. When she was appointed in 2017, she became the first woman to lead Scotland Yard.
damning report
The Metropolitan Police (Met) have also been roundly criticized for being slow to investigate parties held in Downing Street and in power circles despite health restrictions, a scandal that threatens the political survival of Prime Minister Boris Johnson .
The resignation of Mr.me Dick, 61, follows the publication on 1er February, of a damning report by the British “police of polices”, the IOPC. In particular, it had reviewed thousands of messages exchanged on social networks, “many of which were highly sexualized, discriminatory or referred to violence”. They included direct allusions to rape, homophobic or racist terms or references to the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz.
Of the fourteen police officers targeted, based mainly at Charing Cross police station in central London, nine are still active. They had minimized the messages by putting them on the account of the joke.
“Restore Trust”
The investigation was initially opened in 2018 against a police officer suspected of having sex with a drunk person in a police station. It was later expanded.
In a statement released Thursday evening, the Mayor of London explained that he had no “not satisfied” by the answer of Mme Dick faced with the scale of the changes according to him “urgently” necessary for “restore trust” of the London population and get rid of the “racism, sexism, homophobia, harassment, discrimination and misogyny that still exist” in the police of the capital.
After the rape and murder of a Londoner, Sarah Everard, by a police officer in March 2021, which caused deep shock in the United Kingdom, the police were accused of having ignored a whole series of alarming signals about the behavior of this agent.
She had also been singled out for her muscular intervention in order to disperse a rally in tribute to the victim, or when two police officers had taken pictures of themselves at the scene of a double murder before sharing the photos.
Since his arrival at the head of the London police force, Mme Dick had to deal with a series of jihadist attacks in 2017, the deadly fire at Grenfell Tower (71 dead), as well as “difficult demonstrations”at “the pandemic” and at “murder of serving officers”she recalled. “I’m incredibly proud of my team and everything[elle a] accomplished. »