Ex-Police Chief Dame Cressida Dick laments force's 'moral health'
Disgraced former Police Chief Dame Cressida Dick expresses shame at the force’s ‘professional and moral health’
- Ex-chief spoke to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby for his Radio 4 series
- She described the behaviour of some of her former colleagues as ‘unforgivable’
- Met came under fire after murder of Sarah Everard by officer Wayne Couzens
Disgraced former Met Police chief Cressida Dick has admitted she could have done more to improve the force’s ‘professional and moral health’.
Dame Cressida, 62, who presided over a toxic culture of racism and sexism that engulfed the Met, described the behaviour of some colleagues as ‘unforgivable’.
In her disastrous five-year reign as Commissioner of Britain’s biggest force, public confidence in the police was shaken to its core by a series of outrages that exposed a deep seam of misogyny among senior officers.
Her failure to get a grip on scandals led to her being forced out last April.
Now, in her first interview since then, she said: ‘I fought racism and homophobia and sexism and misogyny within the service and elsewhere throughout my time.
Disgraced former Met Police chief Cressida Dick has admitted she could have done more to improve the force’s ‘professional and moral health’
The disgraced former police chief was speaking to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby for his Radio 4 series The Archbishop Interviews
‘It’s a sadness that having fought and I think having done an enormous amount over many years to challenge and deal with those issues, that my commissionership came to an end because of cultural issues.
‘It’s a real sadness to me to see the pain and the suffering that colleagues and members of the public have reported over the years and it’s a tremendous sadness to me to see some of the appalling examples of horrific behaviour – in my view unforgivable behaviour by colleagues.’
She was speaking to Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby for his Radio 4 series The Archbishop Interviews, to be broadcast today at 1.30pm.
She had a ‘laser-like focus’ on equality and inclusion but may have failed to ‘set my stall out very clearly’.
She added: ‘The irony is not lost on me that I’m a woman and gay. On reflection, I perhaps could have put more resources and people into the professional and moral health of the organisation.’
She revealed that she and senior officers felt ‘anger, upset and shame’ over colleagues’ behaviour.
The Met came under increasing scrutiny following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, 33, by serving police officer Wayne Couzens.
The Met came under increasing scrutiny following the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard, 33, by serving police officer Wayne Couzens (pictured)
Dame Cressida was criticised for a heavy-handed police response to a peaceful vigil for Sarah and for minimising the problem by saying the force had an ‘occasional bad ‘un’.
Later, a report by the Independent Office for Police Conduct revealed shocking messages shared between officers about abusing and raping women, as well as the deaths of black babies and the Holocaust.
She said: ‘I perhaps didn’t get all my responses right how over people saw me and how I communicated.’
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