Cressida Dick wanted £500,000 to quit as Met chief

Cressida Dick wanted £500,000 to quit as Met chief after she was ousted by Sadiq Khan over a string of scandals when she was in charge of Scotland Yard

• Dame Cressida’s four-year tenure as Britain’s top cop was mired in controversy 
• REPORT: Police seize swords, daggers and hand axes in raid on Putney property 

Cressida Dick wanted £500,000 to stand down as Met commissioner after London mayor Sadiq Khan ousted her over a string of damaging scandals, it has emerged. 

Dame Cressida’s four-year tenure was mired in controversy even before it emerged serial rapist David Carrick was allowed to stay in the force under her leadership despite being arrested for rape. 

She eventually resigned after ‘political pressure’ from Mr Khan and his concerns over the ‘erosion of trust and confidence’ at the Met, according to a report published last year. 

Now, a series of tense messages between Dame Cressida’s top aide and advisers for Mr Khan have come to light after being obtained by the Guardian under freedom of information legislation. 

Dame Cressida’s four-year tenure was mired in controversy even before it emerged serial rapist David Carrick was allowed to stay in the force under her leadership despite being arrested for rape 

She eventually resigned after ‘political pressure’ from Mr Khan and his concerns over the ‘erosion of trust and confidence’ at the Met, according to a report published last year

On February 10 2022 – when the police chief announced her departure, Robin Wilkinson – the Met’s former head of corporate services, messaged Mr Khan’s David Bellamy to demand a generous severance package for his boss. 

He wrote that Dame Cressida ‘has contract to end April 2024. 6 months notice in contract but we know this isn’t voluntary. Lawyers clear Cress entitled to full amount.’ 

Later that day, Mr Wilkinson told Mr Bellamy in a phone call that she would need to be confident that there was a ‘genuine and open discussion between lawyers to agree a suitable severance package that recognises the validity of the commissioner’s contract extension’.

At the time her salary was £240,000 a year – £30,000 less than she was entitled to – and she had 26 months remaining on her contract.

A report of events by Mr Wilkinson shows Dame Cressida felt ‘entitled’ to two years severance, It was eventually settled at £165,727.36 – a six-month payout plus an additional payment of two months’ salary.

David Carrick was recently exposed as one of Britain’s most prolific rapists after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape

Dame Cressida began her career in London as a constable before holding a variety of posts on her way to becoming Scotland Yard’s first female chief.  

However, her leadership of the force came under mounting public scrutiny following a number of controversies.

Most recently, David Carrick was exposed as one of Britain’s most prolific rapists after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape. 

The 47-year-old faced complaints about his behaviour before he joined the Met in 2001, then again as a probationer in 2002 and several times throughout his policing career until 2021.

He was only suspended from duty in October 2021 when arrested for rape.

Dame Cressida also faced heavy criticism for the shambles of Operation Midland — the Met’s £1milliion investigation into spurious VIP child sex abuse allegations.

Innocent men, including the late Lord Brittan and Mr Proctor, were pursued by the force in a probe sanctioned in 2014 while Dame Cressida was an assistant commissioner.

The Met’s star witness Carl ‘Nick’ Beech was later revealed to be a serial liar and was jailed after police investigating his claims discovered his deceit.

On Dame Cressida’s watch, ticketless football hooligans broke past Wembley’s security barriers during the Euros last year and stormed the grounds ahead of England’s clash with Italy. The Met was accused of not having enough officers on duty to create a ‘ring of steel’ around he venue to hold back the frenzied England supporters.

Dame Cressida has also faced questions about why marketing manager Sarah Everard’s evil attacker Couzens was not arrested for flashing offences reported to the police before he kidnapped, raped and murdered the 33-year-old.

And in 2021 the force was branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ by an independent panel investigating police inquiries into the unsolved murder in the 1980s of private detective Daniel Morgan.   

The Met declined to comment on Dame Cressida’s pay. .  

The top cop dogged by controversy: String of disasters at the Met under Dame Cressida’s watch  

Jean Charles De Menezes pictured in Paris three months before he was shot dead on a train at Stockwell station on July 22, 2005

July 22, 2005: Jean Charles de Menezes is shot dead on a train at Stockwell Underground station in South London.

The shooting happened when counter-terrorism officers mistook the innocent electrician for one of the terrorists behind an attack on the capital a day earlier.

Mr de Menezes, a Brazilian working in the capital, was blasted in the head seven times by police at Stockwell station after being followed by officers from his home nearby. 

Mr de Menezes’s family led a long campaign calling for police officers to be prosecuted for the shooting and criticising Scotland Yard for its handling of the operation, which was led at the time by Dame Cressida.

Dame Cressida was cleared of all blame by later inquiries, but Mr de Menezes’ family expressed ‘serious concerns’ when she was appointed Met Commissioner in 2017.

The top policewoman told the Mail in 2018: ‘It was an appalling thing – an innocent man killed by police. Me in charge. Awful for the family and I was properly held to account. We learned every lesson that was to be learned’.

April 2017: Appointed as first female Metropolitan Police commissioner with a brief to modernise the force and keep it out of the headlines.

April 2019: Extinction Rebellion protesters bring London to a standstill over several days with the Met powerless to prevent the chaos. Dame Cressida says the numbers involved were far greater than expected and used new tactics but she admits police should have responded quicker.

September 2019: Her role in setting up of shambolic probe into alleged VIP child sex abuse and murder based on testimony from the fantasist Carl Beech (right) is revealed but she declines to answer questions.

2020: Official report into Operation Midland said Met was more interested in covering up mistakes than learning from them.

February 2021: Lady Brittan condemns the culture of ‘cover up and flick away’ in the Met and the lack of a moral compass among senior officers.

• The same month a freedom of information request reveals an extraordinary spin campaign to ensure Dame Cressida was not ‘pulled into’ the scandal over the Carl Beech debacle.

March: Criticised for Met handling of a vigil for Sarah Everard, where officers arrested four attendees. Details would later emerge about how her killer, Wayne Couzens (right), used his warrant card to trick her into getting into his car. 

• In the first six months of the year, London was on course for its worst year for teenage deaths – 30 – with knives being responsible for 19 out of the 22 killed so far. The youngest was 14-year-old Fares Matou, cut down with a Samurai sword. Dame Cressida had told LBC radio in May her top priority was tackling violent crime.

June: A £20million report into the Daniel Morgan murder brands the Met ‘institutionally corrupt’ and accuses her of trying to block the inquiry. Dame Cressida rejects its findings. Mr Morgan is pictured below. 

July: Police watchdog reveals three Met officers being probed over alleged racism and dishonesty.

• The same month the Yard boss is at the centre of another storm after it emerged she was secretly referred to the police watchdog over comments she made about the stop and search of Team GB sprinter Bianca Williams. Dame Cressida is accused of pre-empting the outcome of an independent investigation.

• Also in July she finds herself under fire over her woeful security operation at the Euro 2020 final at Wembley where fans without tickets stormed the stadium and others used stolen steward vests and ID lanyards to gain access.

August Dame Cressida facing a potential misconduct probe over her open support for Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Horne who could stand trial over alleged data breaches.

December: Two police officers who took pictures of the bodies of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman (right) were jailed for two years and nine months each.

Pc Deniz Jaffer and Pc Jamie Lewis were assigned to guard the scene overnight after Ms Henry, 46, and Ms Smallman, 27, were found dead in bushes in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, north-west London. Instead, they breached the cordon to take photographs of the bodies, which were then shared with colleagues and members of the public on WhatsApp. 

 

December: Dame Cressida apologises to the family of a victim of serial killer Stephen Port (right). Officers missed several chances to catch him after he murdered Anthony Walgate in 2014. 

Dame Cressida – who was not commissioner at the time of the murder – told Mr Walgate’s mother: ‘I am sorry, both personally and on behalf of The Met — had police listened to what you said, things would have turned out a lot differently’.’

January 2022: She faces a barrage of fresh criticism for seeking to ‘muzzle’ Sue Gray’s Partygate report by asking her to make only ‘minimal’ references to parties the Met were investigating. 

February 2022: Details of messages exchanged by officers at Charing Cross Police Station, which included multiple references to rape, violence against women, racist and homophobic abuse, are unveiled in a watchdog report.

January 2023: David Carrick, 48, is exposed as one of Britain’s most prolific rapists last week after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape, while serving with the force between 2003 and 2020.

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