When Dame Cressida Dick resigned as Metropolitan Police Commissioner in February all eyes turned to another Dame – Lynne Owens, the former Director General of the National Crime Agency (NCA). Dame Lynne spent 27 years in policing, at the Met, Kent and Surrey, where she served for four years as Chief Constable, before joining the NCA in 2016.  She retired last October to undergo treatment for breast cancer, from which she has now recovered, and was widely seen as a frontrunner to be Commissioner before deciding, at the last minute, not to apply. 

In her first interview since then, Dame Lynne tells Policing TV’s Chief Presenter, Danny Shaw, about the decision and why she hasn’t ruled out a return to Scotland Yard in the future. She discusses her concerns about possible job cuts at the NCA amid uncertainty at the top of the organisation, the challenges of tackling illicit finance – and why the structure of policing needs a radical overhaul.