CLEVER DICK Former police chief Cressida Dick favourite to be replace hapless Bernard Hogan-Howe as Met Police commissioner after winning over London Mayor
Cressida Dick, 56, is the leading contender to replace Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe next month
A FORMER police chief nicknamed "Harry Potter" by rank and file cops is expected to become the Met’s first ever female commissioner.
Cressida Dick has emerged as the leading contender to be the highest-ranking officer in British policing when current incumbent Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe leaves the post next month.
She enjoys the support of London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who will decide on who gets the £270,648-a-year job.
Dick, a career police officer who left the Metropolitan Police in 2014 to take up a senior role in the Foreign Office, forged a close working relation with Theresa May during the PM’s six-year stint as Home Secretary.
The 56-year-old former Met assistant commissioner is also popular with the rank and file in the London force, where she was affectionately nicknamed Harry Potter by some junior officers because of her faint feminine resemblance to the character played by Daniel Radcliffe.
It is understood that Dick is reluctant to leave her current job as a director-general in a sensitive section within the Foreign Office but was encouraged by senior political figures to apply for the commissioner’s post and given an assurance she would be treated as a “serious candidate.”
Informed sources within Whitehall and policing have confirmed that Dick is “the outstanding candidate” to become the next Met commissioner.
One source told The Sun: “Cressida is the outstanding candidate in the field and crucially has the support of the Mayor’s office as well as the Home Office.
“It is no secret that the Mayor would ideally like an ethnic candidate to reflect the capital’s increasingly cosmopolitan make-up.
“Cressida led the diversity command in the Met for two years and was in overall charge of the successful investigation which resulted in two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers being convicted for his murder.”
The source added : “She has always been a favourite of Mrs May from her time in the Home Office.
“The Prime Minister is determined to make history and put women in other powerful jobs and this would be a perfect opportunity to do that.”
Dick’s appointment would mean the three most important roles in British law enforcement will be held by women. Along with Thornton in charge of the chief officers’ council, Lynne Owens is the director general of the National Crime Agency.
Mrs Rudd will make the final decision by late February and her recommendation will go to the Queen through the mechanism of Downing Street for the commissioner to be appointed with a Royal warrant card.
Dick’s appointment would complete a remarkable return to the Met, where she was in charge of the armed operation which led to the killing of innocent suicide bomb suspect Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station, South London, in July 2005.
However, an Old Bailey jury hearing a case against the Met under health and safety legislation over the shooting of 27-year-old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles, exonerated Dick of any personal blame in a letter to the judge.
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Dick is the daughter of two Oxford academics and went to prestigious Balliol College before joining a large accountancy firm upon leaving university.
In a dramatic change of career, Dick joined the Metropolitan Police as a constable in 1983 and ten years later went on a fast-track promotion course at Bramshill police College.
She transferred to Thames Valley in 1995, rising to become area commander of her home city of Oxford and completed another degree in criminology at Cambridge before returning to the Met in 2001 to become head of diversity.
In 2005 Dick was commander in charge of the Met’s Operation Trident, which then investigated murders in London’s black community, when Jean Charles was shot dead while she gold commander in charge of the control room.
The following year she was made deputy assistant commissioner on specialist operations and in 2009 was promoted to assistant commissioner running the Specialist Crime Directorate.
Dick became assistant commissioner in charge of counter-terrorism and security in 2011 and also oversaw the investigations into phone hacking and allegations of payments to public officials.
She defended heavy-handed dawn raids on journalists saying there were “sound operational reasons” for them, despite no evidence of any significance ever being used during any subsequent trials and the Met later back-tracking and interviewing suspects under caution.
However, Dick has said she wants “open, professional and trusting relationships between our officers and journalists” and in the current “sterile” atmosphere of police and media relations, is seen as having the necessary style and credentials to take the Met forward in the post-Leveson inquiry era.
She left the Met in 2014 with sources suggesting she found it difficult to work under the abrasive style of current chief Sir Bernard.
The source said : “Cressida is naturally shy and does not enjoy the media spotlight. She had a tough time after the shooting of Menezes and has spent a lot of her career in the shadows, where she is most at home.
“But she has always had the Met close to her heart and her under-stated manner will be seen as a positive thing in the increasingly politicised world of policing.”