London stabbings: Met Police chief Cressida Dick denies knife crime 'epidemic' despite spate of fatal incidents

Met chief Cressida Dick talks to the Evening Standard about her first year in the role
Cressida Dick pictured at Scotland Yard
Lucy Young
Justin Davenport6 April 2018
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As she prepares to mark one year in the job, Britain’s most senior police officer today spoke of her pride in the Met for keeping London going in the “worst possible circumstances”.

Scotland Yard chief Cressida Dick highlighted the “resilience” of the force and the “amazing individuals” who responded to the four terror attacks in London and the Grenfell blaze which killed 71 people.

She admitted the spate of knife crime made her “angry” — and pledged that tackling violent crime was her priority.

Ms Dick, 57, the first female commissioner in the Met’s 189-year history, said: “We have done a very good job. We have been very resilient. The city has been able to carry on going about its business because of good policing after each of those terrible events.

Met Commissioner Cressida Dick and Sadiq Khan
Roland Hoskins

“I think we have been able to provide a good service in the worst possible circumstances to the people affected by the attacks.”

She said her darkest hours were attending the funeral of PC Keith Palmer — the officer killed in the Westminster terror atrocity — and the scene at the Finsbury Park attack.

“That was so hard on the heels of the Westminster Bridge and the London Bridge attacks and people were really wondering, ‘What is going to come next? Are our communities beginning to fight with each other in a way that is just the exact opposite of what London is all about?’ In fact it did not prove to be thus at all — but it was a tense time and really sad time.”

Westminster Bridge Terror Attack: One Year On

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Ms Dick recently visited Glasgow where police have halved knife crime in a decade using a public health approach. She believes a similar strategy can work in London, though the capital is more complex.

“I would be naive to think we can reduce violent crime to zero but I definitely think we can reverse some of these trends,” she said.

The Met chief agrees with Labour MP David Lammy that drugs are fuelling some of the street violence.

“We still have a high demand for drugs from people with heavy habits and recreational users, many of whom do not stop and think about the kind of horror and misery that lies behind the trade.”

Speaking just days short of her first year in office, she praised a scheme in Brixton which has helped divert youngsters away from crime.

London Murder investigations 2018

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New statistics show that offences involving knife crime with injury rose in the last 12 months by six per cent. “I am not happy about that, it is too much, but it is not this enormous epidemic that people are talking about,” she said. “There are plenty of us who can go about our business pretty certain that we are not going to be affected by this knife crime.

“These homicides are predominantly, tragically, affecting young people from certain areas of London and certain communities and that makes me angry and motivated to do something about it. But London remains a very safe city.”

Ms Dick praised the force’s counter-terrorist teams for thwarting “plot after plot” last year. The Met chief is also dealing with the nerve agent attack in Salisbury and her officers are reviewing 14 other deaths which some allege were Russian-sponsored assassinations.

However, she said she was not willing to waste resources on cases that had already been thoroughly investigated, adding: “We need people to come forward with evidence. Conspiracy theories are not particularly helpful.”

On the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann in 2007, she said the extra cash granted to the Met to continue the inquiry was worth it. “There is a serious line of inquiry,” she declared but wouldn’t be drawn further.

Ms Dick said the Met was “wrestling with demands going up in some areas” notably sex offences and trafficking. She welcomed an extra £112 million from Mayor Sadiq Khan which will help keep officer numbers above 30,000 “for the next two or three years”.

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