Britain’s top cop blasted hypocrite middle-class cocaine users for fuelling killer gang wars
Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said drugs were linked to violence which has claimed 87 lives in London this year
BRITAIN’S most senior police officer blasted hypocritical middle-class cocaine users for championing right-on causes while spreading misery among the poor.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick said drugs and gangs were linked to violence which has claimed 87 lives in the capital this year.
The London police chief said demand for cocaine was on the rise, adding there was a “challenge” tackling middle-class drug users who worry about the environment - but not about people affected by their recreational habits.
Oxford graduate Ms Dick said : “There are whole groups of middle-class people who happily sit around talking and thinking about global warming, fair trade and organic food farms.
“But they do not think there is any harm is taking cocaine - when there is.”
The commissioner told how she had seen the corrosive effects of the drug trade at first hand when she visited an estate in Angell Town, Brixton, two weeks ago.
Ms Dick said she spoke to a little girl who spoke of her concern about drugs being used in the stairwell of her block.
Ms Dick added that the issue required a society-wide response from politicians and the community, saying : “I would love to wave a magic wand but we can’t.”
But she told how recent raids on drug dealers in West London had led to residents clapping and applauding cops from their balconies.
A steep rise in violence and homicide had now stabilised, said Ms Dick, and moped crimes were down from the rate of 2,500 a month in July last year to just over 1,400 this June following a Met crackdown.
The force has also increased stop and searches and seized 1,200 knives and 140 firearms since April.
Although London’s rate this year now stands at 87 - compared to 115 for the whole of 2017 - the commissioner stressed it was still two or three times less than the annual rate in New York, despite the British capital overtaking it for the first time ever during the month of Feburary this year.
Ms Dick said the rise in homicides was a global issue and blamed the growth of social media for de-sensitising youngsters to the effects of violence.
Det Supt Sean Yates, of the Met’s Violent Crime Taskforce, called on school teachers to try and deter children viewing violent images online.
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He said : “We’ve seen an explosion in social media, all young children now have got phones. It’s not unknown for seven or eight-year-old children to have phones.
“They are being exposed to violent incidents intentionally or not because they’re viewing this on social media.
“The teacher knows the classrooms better than any police officer would.
“They can have those conversations one-to-one with children about what they might be being exposed to, what they’re witnessing, or if they’re peripherally being drawn into it.”
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