Top cop in "I'm off!" shocker

smithdown · October 2, 2008

Sir Ian Blair resigns as Met police commissioner

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oc...n.blair.resigns

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, today announced that he is to step down after losing the support of the mayor of London, Boris Johnson.

Blair said he would have liked to continue as Britain's most senior policeman until his contract expired in 2010. But he said that at a meeting yesterday Johnson had told him in a "pleasant but determined" way that he wished to see a "change of leadership".

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The Daily Mail claimed this morning that Blair employed a close friend to give him PR advice prior to taking the job. He denies acting improperly.

Blair's problems stemmed from a series of high-profile mistakes, most notably his handling of the shooting of De Menezes in the wake of the July 2005 bomb attacks on London.

He was criticised for an initial insistence that the shooting was "directly linked" to anti-terrorism operations, despite widespread worries at the time among other Met officers that an innocent man had been killed.

The family of De Menezes, who are in London for the ongoing inquest into the 27-year-old's death, said Blair bore "responsibility for the lies told about Jean and the cover-up by police".

Outside the Oval cricket ground, where the inquest is taking place, De Menezes' cousin, Erionaldo da Silva, said: "Ian Blair should have resigned three years ago when he and his men killed the wrong man."

More recently, Blair has had to deal with two high-profile cases of alleged discrimination by his force. In June, the Met's most senior Asian officer, assistant commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, said he would sue the force for racial discrimination and victimisation.

cymrococh · October 3, 2008

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