Scotland Yard gets 1st woman chief in 187 yrs

Senior British officer Cressida Dick has been appointed as the commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, becoming the first woman to lead Scotland Yard in its 187-year history.

Dick, 56, was previously the UK’s national policing lead on counter-terrorism but left the Metropolitan Police to join the Foreign Office. She takes over from Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who resigns from the post of Metropolitan Police commissioner at the end of this month.

She was in charge of the operation in 2005 when an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by Met officers who mistook him for a suicide bomber. A jury at a criminal trial in 2007 had exonerated her.