Dame Cressida’s decision comes a week after London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was “not satisfied” with the Met Commissioner’s response to calls for change following a series of scandals including the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens, along with racist, misogynist and homophobic messages exchanged by officers at Charing Cross police station.
The news has been welcomed by a number of figures.
Alastair Morgan, who has spent decades campaigning for justice for his brother Daniel, who was killed with an axe in a pub car park in Sydenham, south-east London, in the 1980s, said she had “disappointed” his family on every level.
“The first time I dealt with Cressida Dick was in 2012 and since then all she has done in relation to my family is just delay, obstruct and disappoint on a huge level,” he said.
“Although I think it is a shame that we are seeing another commissioner disappear under a cloud of smoke, it is necessary.
“My only anxiety now is who is going to replace her and face the massive job in front of them of rebuilding confidence in the Met.”
And former Conservative MP Harvey Proctor, whose house was raided by officers from the Met’s failed Operation Midland launched in reaction to false allegations by jailed fantasist Carl Beech about a murderous VIP paedophile ring, said he was “delighted” by the news.
“It is now time to clean the Augean stables so that a full inquiry can be conducted on all her personal mistakes,” he said.
Campaign group Reclaim These Streets, which has initiated a legal challenge against the force over its handling of a Sarah Everard vigil, simply tweeted: “Good Riddance.”
Co-founder of the group, Anna Birley, said she hoped Dame Cressida’s replacement was a feminist.
“I hope that they’re a feminist, I hope that they are somebody who acknowledges that there is a problem because that was something that we found really frustrating over the past months, the lack of willingness to even acknowledge that a problem exists, because without acknowledging that it’s very hard to fix it,” she told the BBC.
https://news.sky.com/story/boris-johnson-latest-live-news-uk-sue-gray-report-parties-partygate-12514080
