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New Metropolitan Police boss Cressida Dick
Staff reporter(wp/es):
New Metropolitan Police boss Cressida Dick today pledged a five-year crackdown on violence to curb the rise in gun and knife crime in London.
Scotland Yard’s first female commissioner promised an “end-to-end” approach in tackling crime and a tough stance on violent offenders.
Speaking within days of three young men being stabbed to death in the capital, she said knife and gun crime were among the most significant challenges she faced.
She declared: “I want to bear down on violent crime, in all its aspects from terrorism to sexual offences but definitely knife and gun crime, particularly as it affects young people.
“It’s an absolute tragedy losing young people in the way we have been to knife crime.
"We are seeing too many young people carrying knives feeling that it will protect them when in actual fact it clearly doesn’t and can be incredibly dangerous and tragic for them and their families.
"Violence, for me, is what this next five years is going to be about.
"You have to prevent people getting involved and you have to intervene really, really strongly with people who are habitual knife carriers, and that includes stop and search, definitely.”
In her first interview, she told the Weastar Times she also planned to modernise the Met with a surge in digital policing to put people in closer touch with local officers.
She said: “I want to see traditional policing with a modern flavour. I am completely committed to local, visible policing, but we have to modernise. There are such opportunities for people to interact with police through the digital sphere that we have not achieved yet.”
She said more young people wanted to report crime online and officers were being equipped with tablets so they could spend more time on the streets.
Ms Dick, 56, spoke three days after attending the funeral last Monday of Pc Keith Palmer, 48, who was stabbed to death defending Parliament in the Westminster terror attack.
Sitting in the New Scotland Yard canteen, she said: “Monday was a very, very sad day but a day also to make me, the Met and policing very proud of what Keith did and what he stood for.”
She said she was proud of the Met’s response to the attack on March 22, which also left four members of the public dead after fanatic Khalid Masood drove a car through crowds on Westminster Bridge.
She also discussed the positive reaction of the public, saying: “Something good must come out of all that horror and one of the things is we must build on that goodwill.”
In another interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC today, she also said she doubted that Pc Palmer would have been able to protect himself if he had been armed because of the speed of the attack.
Ms Dick, who left the Met in 2014 for an anti-terrorism role at the Foreign Office, told the Standard that since the atrocity “a lot of work” has been taking place on how to protect people in future.
She added: “I don’t think the public want to see loads and loads of firearms officers everywhere, what they do want to know is that we are able to respond well and prevent things and we will protect them properly.”
However, she said that although she was against turning London into a fortress, some popular sites and crowded places would get increased security.
Ms Dick, who has already been on patrol with officers across the city, said she wanted to win the support of Londoners, including the “hardest to reach” communities.
She said: “This is about getting communities involved in our work and feeling that this a police service that is protecting them, that is for them and one they want their children to join.”
She dismissed suggestions of a link between the recent £600 million spending cuts and the rise in crime as “ridiculous” and “simplistic” saying there was “a whole set of things going on”.
However, she said cutbacks meant the force had to prioritise and “we may have to stop doing some things”.
Of the £40,000 salary cut she took on accepting the role, she said had not intended to make a statement or create a precedent. “It was a very personal thing,” she said.
“I was simply saying that for me I don’t need that money, my family do not need that money and this is a time of austerity and the Met is under pressure.”
She told the Standard she is in a relationship with another Met officer and is “incredibly well-supported. I am a very happy person.”
In contrast with her predecessor, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Ms Dick is using a pool car, rather than his £65,000 Range Rover, while her security assessment is completed.
She enjoys working in an open-plan office with her senior team, saying it creates a better dynamic.
She added: “I am all about teams. I think I have probably got a reasonably relaxed style as a senior leader, I am pretty demanding, I am known as tough, not a soft touch, but I try to be friendly and I want my staff to feel they can come up and chat to me.”
She also revealed she was turned down by Thames Valley Police after leaving Oxford University and spent a year doing accountancy before she joined the Met.
Ms Dick’s appointment was criticised by the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, who was wrongly shot dead at Stockwell station during an operation she led in 2005 in the aftermath of the 7/7 London bombings.
She said she had thought “deeply” about the issue before applying but decided it would not inhibit her from doing the job.
“It is important as a leader where something has gone wrong that you stand up and give an account of yourself.”
