Khan denies giving Dick sacking ultimatum over Charing Cross officers
Sadiq Khan has flatly denied reports that he gave Cressida Dick an ultimatum to sack rogue Metropolitan Police officers or be sacked herself as commissioner.
The Times today reported the London mayor demanded the now outgoing Met commssioner sack officers at the Charing Cross police station – who were found to have made a slew of racist and homophobic comments, while also joking about raping women – or face the sack herself.
This is despite the fact that Dick did not have the power to come down from on high and sack police officers.
It has been reported that Dick told 100 senior police officers about the alleged ultimatum on a video call in the days after she was forced out as Met commissioner.
Khan unreservedly denied the claim today.
“It is not the case that the commissioner was given an ultimatum to sack them or she would be sacked,” he told LBC.
“That isn’t the position. But I am not going to hide my anger at these officers.”
The mayor lost confidence in Dick’s ability to lead London’s police force last week, because he was unhappy with her proposals on how to clean up the Met’s toxic culture.
She resigned shortly afterward on Thursday night.
Speaking today, Khan said: “In the IOPC report the type of communication they talk about is messages of police officers attending a festival dressed as known sex offenders and a molested child, sent within a WhatsApp group containing 17 serving police officers.
“Numerous messages about rape and raping each other. Examples within the same group as above containing 17 police officers, and also within another WhatsApp group containing 19 officers, homophobic comments such as ‘gay’ five times, ‘you f****ing gay’ … and ‘f***k you bender’.
“Another example of an officer sending a message ‘I would happily rape you’ … ‘if I were single I would happily hate-f***k you’ … ‘if I was single I’d happily chloroform you’.”