Kriti Mehrotra
With Disney+/Hulu’s ‘Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes’ living up to its title in every way conceivable, we get a drama that can only be described as insightful. That’s because it delves deep into the true story of how an innocent 27-year-old Brazilian man named Jean Charles de Menezes was shot to death by Metropolitan Police officers in 2005. They were investigating the attempted July 21 London bombings, and he was misidentified as a potential suicide bomber under the command of then Designated Senior Officer (DOS) Cressida Dick.
Cressida Dick Has Shattered Glass Ceilings For Women in the Police Force
Born on October 16, 1960, as the third and youngest child of University of Oxford historian Cecilia Rachel Dick and Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia Marcus William Dick, Cressida Dick is a true native of Oxford, England. With her background, it comes as no surprise that values like hard work were instilled in her at an early age, resulting in her not only doing relatively well in school but also securing a spot at Balliol College, Oxford for a Bachelor’s in Agriculture and Forest Sciences in 1979. The truth is she was always very athletic too, as evidenced by the fact that she was not a member of the institution’s cricket team but actually their wicketkeeper.
It was in 1981 when Cressida graduated from Oxford, following which she briefly worked in an accountancy firm before deciding to shift gears and join the Metropolitan Police Service, where she found her calling. She started her career as a Constable, but her hard work was so evident that she gradually climbed the internal hierarchical ladder and was ultimately promoted to Chief Inspector within a decade. Not long after, in 1995, she was transferred to the Thames Valley territorial police force, only to hold the title of Superintendent and then Chief Superintendent for 6 years.
Cressida was given the opportunity to come back to the Metropolitan Police Service in 2001, which she embraced with arms wide open, especially as it was in the position of Commander and Head of the Diversity Directorate. In the years to pass, she led different operations as the head of their gang violence unit, where she had over 300 officers under her command at all times. Therefore, with her unfailing determination in the face of adversity and her track record at a time when women weren’t as active in the force, when London was facing potential suicide bombers, she was assigned Designated Senior Officer (DOS).
Cressida Was Cleared of Any Wrongdoing in the Death of Jean Charles de Menezes
It was on July 22, 2005, when Cressida was called into office to serve as the DOS while specialized teams set out to hopefully surveil and capture a potential suicide bomber who had attempted to detonate a bomb just a day prior. However, it culminated in the shooting of an innocent 27-year-old Brazilian electrician named Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Station of the London Underground. This almost did derail her career since her leadership was called into question, yet she has always maintained that while she does regret the loss of an innocent life, she doesn’t believe anyone did anything wrong, as they believed they were facing a bomber.
In fact, during the 2008 inquest investigating Jean’s killing, she testified, “If you ask me whether I think anybody did anything wrong or unreasonable on the operation, I don’t think they did.” Then, in a separate trial, while the Police Service in its entirety was found to have committed several catastrophic errors that had led to Jean’s death, she was cleared of any “personal culpability.” That’s reportedly because her order was allegedly to apprehend the suspect, but the chaos of the control room, the ensuing communication, and the tensions leading up to it resulted in the strategy. Since then, though, Cressida has conceded that she does think about this incident often.
Cressida Dick Continued to Rise Through the Ranks as the Years Passed
While Cressida did face a lot of public backlash for the 2005 incident, she was promoted to the Metropolitan Police Service’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Security and Protection just a year later. As if that’s not enough, she was then assigned as the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Specialist Crime Unit in 2009, becoming the first woman ever to hold this position. Her study of criminology and her training in hostage negotiations then further helped her career as she was appointed Assistant Commissioner of the Counter-Terrorism Operations. However, things soon got a little tricky as her relationship with then-Metropolitan Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe became strained over a series of issues, driving her to leave the job and seriously consider leaving the service altogether.
In fact, as per reports, this was when Cressida saw an opening and tried to become the Chief of Police in Northern Ireland, only to fail owing to her lack of experience in the area. Therefore, in late 2014, it was announced that she would be retiring from the police force the following year to join the Foreign Office in an unspecified yet high-level executive Director-General position. However, in February 2017, she returned to service not as an Assistant or a Deputy head of a department but as the Commissioner of the entire Metropolitan Police Force, becoming the first ever female and the first openly homosexual officer to do so. She actually came out as lesbian in April.
Holding Many Significant Titles, Cressida Dick Prefers to Lead a Quiet Life Today
The truth is, Cressida’s time as Commissioner was not sunshine and rainbows in any way, shape, or form, as several of her strategies were criticised by both fellow officials and the public alike. Just some of them include her stop-and-search tactic in the face of rising crimes, the order to have some attendees of a vigil for murder victim Sarah Everard arrested, and the handling of serial rapist and police officer David Carrick’s case. Nevertheless, she continued serving in her position to the best of her abilities, that is, until she resigned on February 10, 2022, after the Mayor lost confidence in her. By this point, though, Cressida had already been awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service (in 2010) and the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (in 2015). However, the latter title bestowed upon her was promoted to Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (DBE) in September 2019.
This means that today, at the age of 65, she is Dame Cressida Rose Dick DBE QPM, arguably making her one of the most influential and powerful women in the UK. Coming to her academic standing, from what we can tell, she is currently an Honorary Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford, where her father once served as a Senior Tutor too. As for her personal standing, the Governor of the Ditchley Foundation now seemingly prefers to lead a quiet life while splitting her time between London and the West Country with her reported long-term partner, Helen, where they make the most of their time embracing their passions. This includes going on long countryside walks, swimming, and gardening, all the while also undertaking new experiences like visiting new galleries, watching live shows, and traveling.
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