Cressida Dick (16 October 1960-) was Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service from 10 April 2017, succeeding Bernard Hogan-Howe.
Biography[]
Cressida Dick was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England on 16 October 1960. She joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 1983 as a constable, and she was promoted to chief inspector within a decade. She transferred to the Thames Valley Police in 1995, but she returned to the MPS in 2001 as a commander and head of the diversity directorate. In 2003, she took over the 300-strong Operation Trident task force, cracking down on the Yardie drug gangs in London. Dick served as Deputy Commissioner from 2011 to 2012, Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations from 2011 to 2015, and as Commissioner from 2017, becoming the first female and first openly homosexual officer to serve in that position. While she was a trailblazer, she had a controversial career, attracting controversy for the shooting of the innocent Jean Charles de Menezes in the aftermath of the 7/7 attacks of 2005, for the Met's use of stop-and-search tactics, for arresting attendees violating COVID-19 restrictions at a candlelight vigil for the kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021, and for - according to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel - obstructing their inquiry into police corruption.