Dame Cressida Rose Dick (born 16 October 1960) is a British former police officer who served as Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis from 2017 to 2022. She is both the first female and the first openly homosexual officer to lead the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS; or "the Met").
Dick joined the MPS in 1983. From 1995 to 2000 she was a high-ranking officer in the Thames Valley Police. After earning a master's degree in criminology, she returned to the Met in 2001, and subsequently held senior roles in the force's diversity directorate, in anti-gang and anti-gun crime operations, and in counterterrorism operations. In June 2009 she was promoted to the rank of assistant commissioner, the first woman to hold this rank substantively. She briefly served as acting deputy commissioner in late 2011 and 2012 during a vacancy in the office. She oversaw the Met's security preparations for the security operations for the 2012 London Olympics. Dick retired from the Met in 2015 to accept a role in the Foreign Office, but returned in 2017 on being selected by the Home Office to succeed Bernard Hogan-Howe as MPS Commissioner, becoming the first woman to hold this post.
Dick's career has included several significant crises and controversies, as well as a series of career comebacks. In 2005, she headed the operation which led to the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. A subsequent review faulted the MPS for lapses, but Dick was cleared of personal blame in a trial in 2007. As commissioner, she oversaw a service affected by cuts to police budgets and staffing levels. Controversial aspects of Dick's tenure include the Met's use of stop-and-search tactics, the handling of recommendations made after the botched Operation Midland, and arrests of attendees at a candlelight vigil for Sarah Everard and complaints by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel that she obstructed their inquiry into police corruption in 2021.
On 10 February 2022, Dick announced she would be leaving the role after losing the confidence of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, over her response to racism and misogyny in the force. Dick left office on 10 April 2022. In January 2023 it was revealed that part of the reason for Dick's ousting was the Met's handling of the case of the serial rapist David Carrick, a Met police officer.
Early life Dick was born on 16 October 1960 in Oxford, where she was brought up. She is the third and youngest child of Marcus William Dick (1920–1971),Building: Letters 1960–1975, Isaiah Berlin, Penguin Books, 2016, p. 248 Senior Tutor at Balliol College, Oxford, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and Cecilia Rachel Dick (née Buxton, 1927–1995), a University of Oxford historian, daughter of Wing Commander Denis Alfred Jex Buxton, granddaughter of the banker and politician Alfred Fowell Buxton, and great-granddaughter of Thomas Jex-Blake, headmaster of Rugby School.Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, 107th ed., vol. 1, ed. Charles Mosley, Burke's Peerage Ltd, 2003, pp. 500, 622
Dick was educated at the Dragon School and Oxford High School, then in 1979 she was admitted to Balliol College, Oxford where she took a BA degree in Agriculture and Forest Sciences. While at Oxford, Dick was a wicketkeeper on a cricket team.
Before joining the police, Dick worked briefly in a large accountancy firm. Some years later, she took a course in criminology at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, gaining a Master of Studies degree in 2000 and graduating at the top of her class.
Police career In 1983, Dick joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable, patrolling a beat in the West End of London. Within a decade she had been promoted to chief inspector. In 1995, she transferred to Thames Valley Police,Hugh Muir, 'If she felt she had made a huge mistake she would have said so and she would not have sought to move forward' , The Guardian (15 September 2006). where she was initially a superintendent and then chief superintendent and area commander for Oxford.
She returned to the MPS in 2001 as a commander and head of the diversity directorate. In 2003, she became the head of Operation Trident, which then numbered 300 officers.Cindi John, The force behind Operation Trident , BBC News (19 October 2004). Operation Trident investigates gang- and gun-related crime; as head of the unit, Dick was credited with progress in reducing crime among "Yardie" drug gangs.
Dick was commander of Operation Kratos, and in the immediate aftermath of the 21 July 2005 London attempted bombings, she was the gold commander in the control room during the operation which led to the police fatally shooting Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian man who had been wrongly identified as a potential suicide bomber. In a 2008 statement to the inquest investigating de Menezes's death, Dick expressed deep personal regret over de Menezes' death, and said, "If you ask me whether I think anybody did anything wrong or unreasonable on the operation, I don't think they did." The inquest jury recorded an open verdict. In a separate trial, the Met was found to have committed catastrophic errors that had led to de Menezes's death, but Dick was cleared of any "personal culpability" for the tragedy.Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick to leave Met Police , BBC News (1 December 2014). The affair nevertheless almost derailed Dick's career. In 2019, Dick said, "The events of that day stay with one; I think about it quite often. It was a traumatic period. It was an awful time for so many people, obviously and most of all Jean Charles's family, the people who were there when it happened, the firearms officers, the surveillance officers."Mark Townsend, Cressida Dick says death of Jean Charles de Menezes stayed with her , The Guardian (10 February 2019). De Menezes's family opposed Dick's later appointment as Met commissioner.
In 2006, the Metropolitan Police Authority (led by Len Duvall) promoted her to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Security and Protection.Profile: Commander Cressida Dick , BBC News (6 October 2008). In 2009, the Metropolitan Police Authority promoted her to Assistant Commissioner Specialist Crime, in charge of the Specialist Crime Directorate. She became the first woman to become an assistant commissioner. Within the specialist crime directorate, Dick was trained as a hostage negotiator.Christina Lamb, Cressida Dick on lockdown, protests and London's difficult year, The Times of London (28 November 2020).
In July 2011, Dick was appointed assistant commissioner, specialist operations (responsible for the MPS's counter-terrorism operations) following the resignation of John Yates in the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal. In this role, Dick oversaw security operations for the 2012 London Olympics.
In 2011, Dick was appointed acting deputy commissioner, and held the post between the retirement of Tim Godwin and the commencement of the new deputy commissioner Craig Mackey's term at the beginning of 2012. She held the rank until 23 January 2012.
Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe subsequently ousted her from her position as the MPS's counterterrorism head after their relationship became strained.Vikram Dodd, Cressida Dick walking a tightrope over policing of Sarah Everard vigil , The Guardian (14 March 2021). In mid-2014, Dick had been one of three short-listed candidates for the position of chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland,Henry McDonald, Met's Cressida Dick faces interview for top Northern Ireland police job , The Guardian (29 May 2014). but George Hamilton was selected for the role instead.Henry McDonald,George Hamilton to be chief constable of Police Service of Northern Ireland , The Guardian (29 May 2014). It was announced in December 2014 that she would retire from the police in 2015 to join the Foreign Office, in an unspecified director-general level posting. The Foreign Office refused Freedom of Information requests for information on her job title, role and responsibilities, or her wage. In the Daily Telegraph, Martin Evans wrote that she had "an unspecified and rather shadowy security role" at the Foreign Office.
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
On 22 February 2017, the Home Office and the MPS jointly announced that Dick would be appointed as the next Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Her appointment was supported by the Home Secretary Amber Rudd. The appointment was formally made by Queen Elizabeth II, via a warrant under the royal sign-manual, on the recommendation of Rudd. (MPS commissioners are selected by the Home Secretary with input from the mayor of London.) Dick was selected over three other short-listed contenders: Sara Thornton, the chair of the National Police Chiefs' Council; Mark Rowley, an assistant commissioner for counterterrorism at the Met, and Stephen Kavanagh, the chief constable of the Essex Police.Vikram Dodd, Two women among final four for Metropolitan police top job , The Guardian (2 February 2017). The term of the police commissioner is five years, although two of Dick's last three predecessors were ousted early.
Dick assumed office on 10 April 2017; her first official engagement was the funeral of PC Keith Palmer, the officer killed in a terrorist attack at the Westminster Bridge, outside the Palace of Westminster, the previous month.
As commissioner, Dick has criticised police budget cuts, saying that they inhibit the MPS's operations, including counterterrorism efforts; she has attributed rising violent crime in London in part due to budget cuts.Met chief says budget cuts have contributed to rise in violent crime The Guardian. 18 May 2018 In June 2017, after the terrorist attacks at Westminster, London Bridge, and Finsbury Park, Dick called for the government to give more resources for police; budgets and police force strength had declined from a peak in 2009–2010.Frances Perraudin & Alan Travis, Cressida Dick calls for more money for the Met after terrorist attacks , The Guardian (20 June 2017). In 2018, the number of MPS police officers fell below 35,000 for the first time in 15 years; Dick sought to "get to well over 30,500 officers, more than 500 more than we currently have" by the end of 2019. Dick blamed "the glamorisation of violence" and "social media being used to taunt other gangs" as additional factors fueling an increase in violent crime.
Dick expressed concern in 2018 about the impact of a no-deal Brexit, saying that it would be costly and place the public at risk by reducing or eliminating the UK's access to databases, quick extradition processes, and law enforcement cooperation with other EU member states.No-deal Brexit could put public at risk, says Met police chief , The Guardian (27 December 2018).Danny Shaw, Cressida Dick: post-Brexit information sharing 'clunkier' , BBC News (4 July 2018).