Top cop: Cressida Dick in Lewisham yesterday

Britain's new top police officer last night said diversity was at the heart of her role as she confirmed she was in a same-sex relationship with a colleague.

Cressida Dick, 56, said she believed ‘passionately’ that every modern police force must represent the communities it serves.

The Scotland Yard Commissioner said there was ‘some way to go’ for the country’s biggest force to have the confidence of ‘all our public’.

Speaking after becoming the first woman to lead British policing, Miss Dick pledged to drag it into the ‘brave new world’ of 21st-century technology. She warned that more officers will carry Tasers, that the frontline is likely to shrink further, and controversial stop-and-search tactics may increase.

The fiercely private officer, who commands huge respect across the ranks, also opened up for the first time about her private life. Miss Dick confirmed in an interview with London’s Evening Standard that she is in a relationship with a Scotland Yard inspector called Helen.

Describing herself as ‘incredibly well supported’ and a ‘very happy person’, she said her partner was a response team leader in a busy South London borough.

In a further insight into her personal life, she said she enjoyed exercise and reading biographies and she attends church, although she is ‘not super-religious’.

Miss Dick won one of the most prestigious jobs in world policing after being urged to apply by Prime Minister Theresa May. During a 31-year career, she has led some of the most sensitive and high- profile inquiries, including overseeing the fight to bring Stephen Lawrence’s killers to justice.

Miss Dick said she was committed to diversity, and revealed she is in a relationship with a woman called Helen

She was also ultimately responsible for the disastrous operation that led to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, but was vindicated by an Old Bailey jury.

HER OLIVE BRANCH TO THE MEDIA The police must rebuild their relationship with the media for the good of society, Cressida Dick said last night. She said she was ‘fundamentally committed’ to the role of a free Press in Britain, and pledged to ‘reset the relationship’ after the phone hacking scandal and Leveson Inquiry plunged it into the deep freeze. Miss Dick indicated she did not want to repeat the mistakes of her predecessor Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, who came under fire for shutting out the media. Sir Bernard was accused of fostering a climate of paranoia in which officers were forced to declare any contact with journalists and left in fear of explaining their work. ‘I want to reset the relationship with the media if I can,’ Miss Dick said. ‘I want to open the Met up so more officers do feel that within professional guidance, they can and should talk to you.’ Advertisement

After leaving the Met Police in 2014 amid rumours of tension with her predecessor as commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, she spent two years in a senior Foreign Office security role.

During a round of media interviews yesterday, Miss Dick said she suspected she was ‘slightly different’ from other officers. But she said forces were ‘chock full of people who are very diverse’ and the stereotype of ‘monochrome and monolithic’ policing institutions was wrong.

Miss Dick said her commitment to diversity will ‘mark me out’ as a chief officer.

‘I believe passionately that we need to represent the public, that we need to have confidence from all our public and there’s some way to go for the Met,’ she said. ‘You will see me doing an enormous amount to try to improve confidence in our communities.’

Miss Dick set herself apart from Sir Bernard by abandoning his £65,000 Range Rover and taking a voluntary £40,000 pay cut. His macho ‘total policing’ motto has been dropped from the force’s website.

The new commissioner said battling to reduce surging levels of violence, including gun and knife crime, will be at the centre of her role. She added that in many cases young people not linked to gangs were carrying weapons in the mistaken belief it made them safer.

Miss Dick also warned that the number of frontline officers may shrink because of budget cuts, but the force can still deliver a ‘very effective’ service.

'I'll pursure Lawrence killers as long as I live'

Cressida Dick says she will fight to bring all the killers of Stephen Lawrence to justice for ‘as long as I am alive’.

The new Scotland Yard commissioner said there was a ‘huge public interest’ in seeing the remaining suspects jailed.

After years of working alongside Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville, Miss Dick said she was looking forward to hearing details of the progress of the inquiry.

‘I was very pleased that we got the convictions that we did eventually – far too late, of course. I will remain committed as long as I am alive,’ she said.

Miss Dick has spent more than 13 years as the most senior officer responsible for the investigation into the 1993 attack.

Stephen, 18, was stabbed to death by a racist mob as he waited with a friend at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London. Failures by police and the criminal justice system let the killers escape unpunished and led to the Daily Mail accusing five men of murder 20 years ago.

David Norris, 40, and Gary Dobson, 41, were convicted in 2012 after a forensic breakthrough. But three other gang members – Neil Acourt, 41, his brother Jamie, 40, and Luke Knight, 40 – have never been successfully put on trial.

Miss Dick added: ‘I haven’t had a briefing on the case. I will. There will be questions at some stage of whether, if we haven’t secured a conviction, it is time to pause and wait.

‘This is a crime of huge public interest and will be until those who we believe to be the other offenders have been convicted.’

Neil Acourt was jailed for more than six years in February for his role in a £4million drugs racket. Norris is suing the Government for £10,000 after he was beaten up in prison. He claims the authorities failed in their duty to protect him.