DE MENEZES COP'S BID TO LEAD PSNI; Senior Met officer wants to be first female chief con.

Byline: JILLY BEATTIE

A WOMAN cop behind the police operation which led to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes has applied to be PSNI chief constable, the Daily Mirror can reveal.

Cressida Dick, 49, was described as the shoot-to-kill "decision maker" on the day the innocent Brazilian was shot dead in London in 2005.

She was the designated officer for Operation Kratos - codename for special tactics to deal with suicide bombers including shoot-to-kill without warning.

Despite the controversy around the killing on the Underground, Miss Dick was later promoted to deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr de Menezes' grieving family described the move as "disgusting and outrageous" but Miss Dick's appointment had many supporters.

During the court case, she said: "Given what I now know and what I was told at the time, I wouldn't change those decisions. I rarely get anxious. I do not have anxiety."

The jury found the Met guilty as a whole but said Commander Dick could not be held personally culpable for Mr de Menezes death.

Now Miss Dick has Northern Ireland in her sights.

A senior police source said: "It isn't a surprise she's applied. She has a lot of high-end experience under her belt. Very often that can come with some controversy and she is no exception.

"I understand she has been quite vocal about plans to leave the Met if the right opportunity came along. This could be it.

"However how our experienced officers would feel about another Met appointment is an other matter."

Current Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde is due to leave the PSNI on September 1 after seven years. Despite claiming he is leaving the PSNI in a better state than he found it, his successor will face an uphill task.

The job now comes with severely depleted numbers, low morale, rising crime figures and almost half the service boasting fewer than seven years experience in the job.

The failure rate on the senior officers' promotion boards recently hit 96 per cent, leaving scores of dedicated officers disheartened and disillusioned.

To add to the pressure, 1,100 highly-experienced former RUC officers will soon leave the PSNI as part of the Patten agreement.

They will take with them around 60 million hours of policing experience - and be replaced by new 450 recruits with six months experience. Sir Hugh confirmed last week that the PSNI's 521-strong full-time reserve force will be scrapped by 2011.

The PSNI's new Deputy Chief Constable Judith Gillespie was given the job of negotiating the reserve force's demise.

On her promotion she revealed that a female Chief Constable would ensure "the dream team" within the PSNI.

Miss Dick is from Oxford and graduated from Balliol College, Oxford.

She joined the Met in 1983 and has 12 months less experience than Miss Gillespie who will act as Chief Constable from September 1 until the new appointment is made.

ANOTHER name in the frame is former RUC man Jim Gamble.

He is the chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and has 26 years policing experience.

He was the head of the RUC's anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast and most recently tackled organised crime as the deputy director of the National Crime Squad.

TOUGH RISE TO THE TOP

CRESSIDA Dick has had a succession of tough postings which professionally tested her to the limit.

In the wake of the inquiry into the killing of Stephen Lawrence, the commander became head of Scotland Yard's diversity unit.

In May 2002 she said the Met remained "institutionally racist", the key criticism in the inquiry's conclusions. In the summer of 2003, she moved to the Met's Specialist Crime Directorate running 300 Operation Trident officers - the Met's specialist unit tackling gun crime in black communities.

She became one of a handful of senior Met officers trained to deal with potential shoot-tokill operations after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. In the crisis of the July 2005 London bombings, Miss Dick came to the fore.

On July 22, the day de Mr Menezes was killed, she arrived at Scotland Yard in the early hours to become the "gold commander" responsible for "tactical delivery" on the ground. In September 2006 she was promoted to deputy assistant commissioner of the Met.

CAPTION(S):

SHOOTING Ms Dick and de Menezes