Sadiq Khan and Cressida Dick’s relationship “broke down”, a government minister said today.
The beleaguered Metropolitan Police Commissioner dramatically resigned last night just hours after saying she had “absolutely no intention” of going.
But the mayor of London withdrew support for her leadership and Dick said she had been left with “no choice”.
Transport minister Robert Courts said it was “regrettable” that the relationship between the two had “broken down”.
It comes amid reports that the mayor did not warn the Home Office that he was planning to get rid of Dick.
Courts told Sky News: “I think it is a little bit of a shame things have happened the way they have.
“It appears clearly that the relationship was broken down between the mayor and of course Dame Cressida.
“That is a shame, but I think what we’ve got to do now is focus on the future and to start to address all of the issues that will cause the people of London concern.”
Asked to expand on why it was a “bit of a shame” that the relationship became unworkable, Courts replied: “Clearly it is a key relationship, isn’t it, between the mayor and his chief police officer?
“It would have been better if that had been handled in a way that meant the relationship hadn’t broken down, but it clearly has – both parties have said that – so I’m just acknowledging the fact that that relationship has broken down, which is regrettable, but as I say, we are where we are, and we need to look to the future.”
The commissioner had come under fierce criticism after a string of scandals in the Met – from the murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer, to the revelation that 14 officers at Charing Cross police station made jokes about rape, domestic violence, the Holocaust and killing black children.
Susan Hall, the Tory chair of the London Assembly‘s police and crime committee, said she thought the mayor had handled it “extremely badly”.
Hall told the BBC Radio 4′s Today programme: “Confidence in the police at the moment is at an all-time low and this won’t help either. I think the way he said to the media he put her on notice, he should have been talking behind closed doors.
“He also renewed her contract only a couple of months ago. If he was that unhappy, then I would wonder why he did that?”
But Labour’s spokesperson for policing on the Assembly, Unmesh Desai, said it was clear the “toxic culture” in the Met needed to be “urgently addressed”.
“The mayor has been right to step in and maximise the pressure on the Met’s current leadership to enact the scale of change needed,” he added.