The chief constable who once ran the force that covered Theresa May’s constituency has become the latest woman to join the race to be Metropolitan police commissioner.
Sara Thornton, 53, who was in charge of Thames Valley police for eight years until becoming chairwoman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council last year, has applied to succeed Bernard Hogan-Howe as Britain’s most senior police officer. May’s constituency of Maidenhead falls under the control of the Thames Valley force.
A government source said: “Sara Thornton has definitely applied. The applications deadline is early in January.”
Thornton’s entry into the contest follows the revelation by this newspaper last weekend that Cressida Dick, 56, a former Met assistant commissioner who works for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has also thrown her hat into the ring.
The Sunday Times understands that a senior Canadian female police officer has also applied for the Scotland Yard post. The identity of the applicant is unknown, but one of the country’s highest ranked officers is Marianne Ryan, a deputy commissioner with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). She was unavailable for comment this weekend.
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Police and political sources say the prime minister is keen to see the appointment of the first woman as Met commissioner. The decision on Hogan-Howe’s successor will rest with the home secretary, Amber Rudd, in consultation with Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London.
“There are very credible candidates who are women and have huge experience,” said one source. “The home secretary and prime minister are certainly interested in seeing a woman take the job, but it will have to be someone who is highly qualified.”
There are at least two male candidates — Mark Rowley, the Met’s assistant commissioner for antiterrorism, and Stephen Kavanagh, chief constable of Essex police.
Like May, Thornton is the daughter of a vicar. A mother of two, she read philosophy and politics at the University of Durham before joining the Met in 1986.
She became chief constable of Thames Valley in 2007 and was rated the 18th most powerful woman in Britain by Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in 2013.
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Thornton’s career has not been without controversy. Three years ago she faced criticism when it emerged that her force had failed to react to the rape of hundreds of young girls by a gang of men of Asian descent.
Like Thornton, Dick — who was appointed CBE last year — is highly rated, but has also been embroiled in controversy. Most notoriously, she was in charge of the botched operation that resulted in the death of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005, while police hunted terrorists.
“Both Thornton and Dick have an enormous set of skills that would benefit the Met,” one insider said. “And as much as we would like to see a woman running the Yard, we hope whoever gets the job does so on merit and not just because of their gender.”
Ryan, who joined the RCMP 34 years ago, has led international investigations targeting crime syndicates. The entry into the race for commissioner by a foreign national echoes an interest expressed in 2011 by Bill Bratton, the former police chief in both New York and Los Angeles, in the job.
Bratton, who had described the position as being “one of the most significant, complex and important police leadership positions in the world”, was championed by the former prime minister David Cameron, who wanted to see the American supercop at the helm of Scotland Yard.
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However, Cameron was overruled by May — then home secretary — who issued an advertisement through the Home Office stressing that “applicants must be a British citizen”.