wanted £500,000 to stand down as Met commissioner after London mayor ousted her over a string of damaging scandals, Grating Surabaya it has emerged. 

Dame Cressida’s four-year tenure was mired in controversy even before it emerged . 

She eventually resigned after ‘political pressure’ from Mr Khan and his concerns over the ‘erosion of trust and confidence’ at the Met, according to a report published last year. 

Now, a series of tense messages between Dame Cressida’s top aide and advisers for Mr Khan have come to light after being obtained by under freedom of information legislation. 

On February 10 2022 — when the police chief announced her departure, Robin Wilkinson — the Met’s former head of corporate services, messaged Mr Khan’s chief of staff David Bellamy to demand a generous severance package for his boss. 

He wrote that Dame Cressida ‘has contract to end April 2024.6 months notice in contract but we know this isn’t voluntary. Lawyers clear Cress entitled to full amount.’ 

Later that day, Mr Wilkinson told Mr Bellamy in a phone call that she would need to be confident that there was a ‘genuine and open discussion between lawyers to agree a suitable severance package that recognises the validity of the commissioner’s contract extension’.

At the time her salary was £240,000 a year — £30,000 less than she was entitled to — and she had 26 months remaining on her contract.

A report of events by Mr Wilkinson shows Dame Cressida felt ‘entitled’ to two years’ severance.It was eventually settled at £165,727.36 — a six-month payout plus an additional payment of two months’ salary.

Dame Cressida began her career in London as a constable before holding a variety of posts on her way to becoming Scotland Yard’s first female chief.  

However, her leadership of the force came under mounting public scrutiny following a number of controversies.

Most recently, David Carrick was exposed as one of Britain’s most prolific rapists after admitting 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape. 

The 47-year-old faced complaints about his behaviour before he joined the Met in 2001, then again as a probationer in 2002 and several times throughout his policing career until 2021.

He was only suspended from duty in October 2021 when arrested for rape.

Dame Cressida also faced heavy criticism for the shambles of Operation Midland — the Met’s £1milliion investigation into spurious VIP child sex abuse allegations.

Innocent men, including the late Lord Brittan and MP Harvey Proctor, were pursued by the force in a probe sanctioned in 2014 while Dame Cressida was an assistant commissioner.

The Met’s star witness Carl ‘Nick’ Beech was later revealed to be a serial liar and was jailed after police investigated his claims and discovered his deceit.

On Dame Cressida’s watch, ticketless football hooligans broke past Wembley’s security barriers during the Euros last year and stormed the grounds ahead of England’s match with Italy. The Met was accused of not having enough officers on duty to create a ‘ring of steel’ around the venue to hold back the frenzied England supporters.

Dame Cressida has also faced questions about why Sarah Everard’s evil attacker Wayne Couzens was not arrested for flashing offences reported to the police before he kidnapped, raped and murdered the 33-year-old in March 2021.

In the same year the force was branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ by an independent panel investigating police inquiries into the unsolved murder of private detective Daniel Morgan in the 1980s.   

The Met declined to comment on Dame Cressida’s pay. 

<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news" data-version="2" id="mol-c82f8620-a07c-11ed-86df-ffbdc3ce9b30" website Dick wanted £500,000 to quit as Met chief