SELECTING MET POLICE COMMISSIONERS

The opportunity to express opinions on matters of significance to legally minded readers is a privilege. On reflection these opinions can be divided into two aspects of our system of justice: the general or macro view and the detailed micro viewpoint illustrated by examples which might or might not be statistically significant for the PhD student of criminology but are illustrative of what I could describe as the common person`s opinion. It is in contact with police that most criminal legal matters begin. When faith in the correct operation of police starts to erode, faith in our society`s ability to function as a cohesive unit also begins to deteriorate. And so to today.

A look at the treetops of the Metropolitan Police and one would expect that an example of probity of the highest order would  exist.  After all, the very highest of government powers through the very highest of the government`s   investigatative organs are employed to ensure that the 16 officers appointed at Chief Constable rank which for the Met includes those of Deputy Assistant Commissioner and above are of exemplary character and ability. At the current time it is public knowledge that the most senior officers to have left prior to their contract end date in recent years is as below: 

Met Police Commissioners are normally appointed for five years under contract. It is well known that there has been pressure on the current Commissioner that she be relieved of her post.  This of course has been denied and the likelihood is that she will see out her contract. The day after Paul Stephenson resigned in 2011 his deputy also resigned. In 2017 the then Deputy Commissioner Sir Craig Mackey was allowed to continue in his post until his contracted retirement in December of that year although he behaved in an apparently  cowardly fashion when a terrorist killed a constable guarding the House of Commons. The case of former Assistant Commissioner Maxine de Brunner is another worrying example of what is going wrong at the country`s biggest police force. Accounts of her behaviour which led to her leaving are available from earlier posts with additional reference here.  Sir Ian Blair resigned his post prematurely owing inter alia to his involvement in the shooting of  Jean Charles de Menezes.  The current Commissioner Cressida Dick was the gold commander in that tragedy. 

A similar history of the premature resignations of Chief and Deputy Chief Constables in county forces would expose the various shortcomings of the selection process. That will be a post for another day.  But not to worry; most retiring Met Commissioners are offered at least a knighthood (damehood) if not a seat in the House of Lords where £300/day for their attendance can top up their generous pensions.