Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, the highest-ranking police officer in the UK and the first woman to hold the role.
On the island
Eight records
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
This reminds me of the very first time I went to the ballet at the new theatre in Oxford and I was absolutely transfixed.
Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2 "The Tempest"Favourite
I would not be able to go to the Desert Island without some Beethoven piano.
I think her voice, particularly when she hits that top note, is extraordinary.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
I think it's appropriate for life on a desert island.
Schwanengesang, D. 957: No. 4. Ständchen (Serenade)
Alexander Huvthof and Andreas Freuleich
Schubert will remind me of Helen.
Colin Firth and Rupert Everett
Harry Vanda and George Redburn Young
I wanted something that would amuse me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:51What was the thinking behind using police cars to ram thieves on mopeds off their bikes?
We've used a whole range of tactics. As a result of those tactics, we've reduced the number of those crimes by over 40%, nearly 50% actually. We use it very rarely. I think in the whole of last year, in the whole of this great seething city, so-called tactical contact was used just over 60 times. And we pursue people occasionally, over 600 moped-enabled pursuits last year. And what we have observed in the last few months is actually more and more people are just stopping and therefore the contact is absolutely not required. But if they do, make off from the police. And more to the point, they're driving on the pavements, they are refusing to stop however many times they're asked, and they're putting themselves and the public at risk. The vast majority of the public seem to support us in using when it is safe to do so this tactic.
Presenter asks
4:59What's the biggest challenge in bringing the knife crime figures down?
Well the figures are a huge challenge but they're also a huge sort of drive for me. Every day I and I think the vast majority of them are working desperately hard to try to reduce the phenomenon of particularly young people on the street carrying weapons to intervene early, to divert them away from it, but also to catch people who are carrying knives, to take knives off the streets, to bring people to justice. Of course what we know is that a huge number of the people who are stabbed have also stabbed people before and vice versa and that these youngsters are finding it really hard to resist being exploited, being bullied, being tempted by the offer of huge money and drug dealing. To stay safe you need to carry a weapon is what some of the bigger boys, some of the gangsters, some of the organised criminals will say to them. So it's a complicated phenomenon and we're beginning to see in the figures of people under the age of 25 who've been stabbed, we're beginning to see that those are reducing through enormous efforts by my officers and many others. But that's no comfort I'm sure to a mother who's worrying about whether her son can go out safely tonight or even more to the point, the families of the youngsters who've died.
The keepsakes
The book
The Complete Works of Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
I love the poetry, particularly the love poetry, and I love his novels as well.
The luxury
a large endless supply of floral soaps
I would just be so happy if you gave me a large endless supply of different soaps, particularly sort of floral soaps that remind me of flowers I've grown and happy times.
Presenter asks
6:56Is there a relationship between police budget cuts and rising knife crime?
I've always said I think there is some relationship between the reduction in public spending generally and in particular in policing and this phenomenon. It's obviously much more complicated than that, but in the last few years the demand on policing has gone up, the complexity, the expectations on us, including online crimes, human trafficking, terrorism as well of course. So we're being asked to do an enormous amount and we have had in the Met alone the last few years we've taken over £700 million out of our budgets. So it's tight and it's difficult. It's challenging. I'm pleased to say in the last two years we have managed to get more investment and right now the Met is growing and we're recruiting and I'll be able to put more people out on the streets and I'll be able to give them better kit and new ways of bearing down on violent crime.
Presenter asks
21:41What was the impact on you of the [Jean-Charles de Menezes] shooting in 2005?
Well, it was an awful time for so many people, obviously, most of all, Jean Charles's family. Also, I think the people who were there when it happened and the officers, the firearms officers and the surveillance officers. So I was very conscious that it was a hundred million times worse for other people than it was for me. But I was very high profile, quite rightly held to account, investigated over months and years. And it was a difficult time. But I simply wanted to, if you like, do my duty, which was to explain to people what had happened from my point of view, stand up and be counted, show some leadership. And I came through having, I guess, learnt a lot about how operations like that can be run. I think the Met learnt a lot. And the testament to that is the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of firearms operations that we've had since, including against many, many terrorist subjects and other people. And it's the events of that day obviously stay with one. You know, I think about it quite often.
Presenter asks
23:53Was [the de Menezes shooting] an experience that changed you?
I think it did. It didn't make me want not to take responsibility for high-risk operations. If anything, rather the reverse. I carried on doing leadership roles in command roles in very high-risk areas with a sort of determination to do them as well as we could. But it made me... It caused me to learn a lot about the impact of these kinds of events on everybody and how one can, as a leader within an organisation, look after people who've been through the events that, say, the firearms officers had been through. And it taught me quite a lot about what counts in my life and the things that I really cared about and wanted to hang on to. You know, I wish, wish, wish it hadn't happened of course. But if anything, it's made me a better leader, a better police officer, it's made me more resilient.
Presenter asks
26:14What do you remember about the moment you found out you'd been appointed Met Commissioner?
It was extraordinary. I was in my office just a matter of a very few hours after my interview had finished and somebody said, oh, Cresta, the home secretary, is on the phone. Amber Rudd had been chairing the interview panel. And, you know, I was just amazed, really, and excited. And she, you know, there was no time for lots of chat. She needed to get on because it was breaking in the news. So I went through to talk to my boss and he seemed really pleased. And he said, you'd better ring Helen, hadn't you? So I rang Helen, my partner, who was at work as a duty inspector in the police at the time. And I remember she said, I'm going to have to sit down. It was great. It was a fantastic moment. And I thought about my mum.
“Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.”
“I think she'd have laughed probably. She she'd have sort of giggled and and laughed and would have found it quite hard to believe. But um uh I guess she'd have been proud.”
“I feel very lucky that I've landed on my feet in a job that I adore. I guess I've been a bit more maybe a little bit more resilient and stoical than I thought I would be.”
“I know that when I was a little girl my father was worried that I was very shy and I think I remain in some respects quite a private person but I've learnt and enjoy being able to engage with people and I enjoy that more and more. I feel very fulfilled by what I've done. If it ended tomorrow from my point of view I've had a great time.”