By Victoria Mckeown-
A whole new set of vetting procedures is necessary in the police force.
Former Met police superintendent , Parm Sandhu and Senior Labour MP Harriet Harman are leading the calls for Dame Cressida Dick to go.
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Harman said confidence in the police “will have been shattered” following horrifying revelations of the way the firearms officer killed Everard.
In her letter she wrote it would not be possible for Dame Cressida to oversee the changes needed to rebuild trust.
Parm Sandhu told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme a “complete overhaul” of vetting procedures was needed and she did not have trust in the Met commissioner to make the necessary changes.
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“I think she has done as good a job as she can, she cannot move with the times and she needs to go,” she added.
The Old Bailey heard how Couzens used his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card and handcuffs to abduct Ms Everard under the guise of an arrest, as she was walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London.
At the time of the murder, Couzens was a serving firearms officer for the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, working at diplomatic premises around central London.
He was sacked by the Met after pleading guilty.
Ms Harman, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and a former justice minister, is a prominent campaigner on women’s rights.
She has also written to Home Secretary Priti Patel, calling for urgent changes to rebuild women’s confidence in the police.
Her proposals include tougher action against officers accused of violence against women and stricter vetting of recruits.
In her letter to Dame Cressida, Ms Harman, who is also Mother of the House – the longest continuously serving female MP – said: “I ask you to resign to enable these changes to be taken through and for women to be able to have justified confidence in the police.”
“Women need to be confident that the police are there to make them safe, not to put them at risk,” she said.
“Women need to be able to trust the police, not to fear them.”
Ms Harman told Ms Patel “too many warning signs” about Couzens “had been swept under the carpet” and women’s confidence in the police “cannot be rebuilt with the attempt to reassure that this was just, as the Metropolitan Police commissioner said, one ‘bad’un’.”
Parm Sandhu told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme a “complete overhaul” of vetting procedures was needed and she did not have trust in the Met commissioner to make the necessary changes.
“I think she has done as good a job as she can, she cannot move with the times and she needs to go,” she added.
The call for Dick to go follows the life sentencing of Wayne Couzens, 48, who kidnapped, raped and murdered Ms Everard, 33, in March.
The Old Bailey heard how Couzens used his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card and handcuffs to abduct Ms Everard under the guise of an arrest, as she was walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London.
At the time of the murder, Couzens was a serving firearms officer for the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, working at diplomatic premises around central London.
He was sacked by the Met after pleading guilty. Ms Harman, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and a former justice minister, is a prominent campaigner on women’s rights.
Sandhu has also written to Home Secretary Priti Patel, calling for urgent changes to rebuild women’s confidence in the police.
Her proposals include tougher action against officers accused of violence against women and stricter vetting of recruits.
In her letter to Dame Cressida, Ms Harman, who is also Mother of the House – the longest continuously serving female MP – said: “I ask you to resign to enable these changes to be taken through and for women to be able to have justified confidence in the police.”
“Women need to be confident that the police are there to make them safe, not to put them at risk,” she said.
“Women need to be able to trust the police, not to fear them.”
Ms Harman told Ms Patel “too many warning signs” about Couzens “had been swept under the carpet” and women’s confidence in the police “cannot be rebuilt with the attempt to reassure that this was just, as the Metropolitan Police commissioner said, one ‘bad’un’.”
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