The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service in London, Cressida Dick, announced her resignation Thursday following multiple accusations of misogyny, racism and sexism in the capital force’s ranks.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said Thursday that he was dissatisfied with Dick’s response when he told her last week that the force needed to change to “root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination, and misogyny.”
“It’s clear that the only way to start to deliver the scale of the change required is to have new leadership right at the top of the Metropolitan Police” the mayor said, as quoted in The New York Times.
Khan thanked Dick for her 40 years of service.
Dick, 61, was appointed commissioner in 2017, becoming the first woman to lead Scotland Yard, another name for the London police.
“It is with huge sadness that following contact with the mayor of London today, it is clear that the mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue,” Dick said in a statement on Thursday.
The mayor has requested that Dick stay for a “short period” to “ensure the stability of the Met” and a smooth transition to a new commissioner.
Calls for Dick’s resignation started after the rape and murder of 33-year-old London woman Sarah Everard by a Metropolitan Police officer in March 2021.
Dick’s resignation comes after a report released last week by England’s official police watchdog described London police officers joking about rape and trading racist messages, according to The New York Times.
Dick acknowledged the case in her statement, saying that “many other awful cases recently have, I know, damaged confidence in this fantastic police service.”
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.