Assistant Commisioner Cressida Dick

Cressida Dick was born, brought up and educated in Oxford. She joined the Metropolitan Police in 1983 and served as a Constable, Sergeant and Inspector in Central, South West and South East London. After a secondment to the staff of the Accelerated Promotion Course at Bramshill, she transferred to Thames Valley Police as Superintendent Operations at Oxford and subsequently spent three years as Area Commander in charge of policing the city of Oxford. After attending the Strategic Command Course, Cressida took a career break and studied full time for an M. Phil. in Criminology.

In June 2001 Cressida returned to the Met as a Commander. She was Director of the Diversity Directorate which gave her pan-London strategic responsibility for the implementation of recommendations from the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report and developing the Met's wider diversity policies. Cressida joined Specialist Crime Directorate in 2003 where she was Commander in charge of Serious & Organised Crime and Trident.

In February 2007 Cressida was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner and moved to Specialist Operations in charge of protection and security in London. She was the Met's representative on the “PROTECT” strand of the Government’s Counter Terrorism Strategy and was the Specialist Operations lead in the Met's preparation for the Olympics.

In July 2009, Cressida was promoted to be the first female Assistant Commissioner in the Met when she took over Specialist Crime Directorate, which investigates the majority of serious crimes that occur in London - including murder, kidnap, shootings, rape, armed robbery, gun supply, child abuse, major fraud, e-crime, drugs networks – as well as delivering forensics, intelligence and covert policing capability to the whole of the Met.

Cressida has extensive command experience in public order, firearms and security. She undertook command roles in the Met’s response to 9/11, the Tsunami, and the 2005 and 2007 terrorist attacks in London. She trained as a hostage negotiator in 1989 and is chair of the National Negotiator Group.

Cressida has been a long standing member of BAWP (British Association of Women in Policing) and was appointed President in October 2010.

Cressida’s policing interests include policing ethics, leadership, diversity, hostage negotiation and critical incident management. She regularly delivers presentations and training in the spheres of police leadership, culture and diversity and in critical incident management.