No-nonsense reputation carried into the Met deputy assistant comissioner's appearance at the Leveson inquiry
The daily diet of burglaries, robberies and violence was interrupted at Islington nick one day in the 1990s with the arrival of the actor Helen Mirren and her entourage. In preparation for her role in TV drama Prime Suspect, Mirren was looking for inspiration. It was at the north London police station – according to fellow officers – that Mirren met a woman who helped form the character of Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison.
Sue Akers – now deputy assistant commissioner – was a detective inspector in her early 30s who had earned a reputation as a tough, no nonsense officer. Tennison is no longer on our screens but Akers – her hair skillfully highlighted, dark-rimmed glasses complementing an intense air – has become the poster girl for the "new" back-to-basics Metropolitan police.
Rightly or wrongly, the job of restoring the Met's reputation in the aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal rests on her shoulders. For a woman with such a weighty task, Akers, 55, maintains a flinty composure as she faces committees of MPs and the ranks of lawyers at the Leveson inquiry – perhaps because she has had far more dangerous adversaries in the past. Now one of a small group of very senior female officers at the Met, Akers has always chosen the tough end of policing.
Akers is Metropolitan police to the core. Brought up in London and educated at Queen Elizabeth Girls' School in Barnet, she joined the force in 1976, and is a career detective whose vast experience takes in investigating murder, kidnapping, organised crime, gangs and guns. She has never shied from the most macho areas of policing: Akers was a detective chief inspector in the Flying Squad, once known as the "heavy mob" or "the Sweeney".
"She has a wonderful ability to dispense with nonsense, bullshit and jargon," said one colleague. "She has never lost her common touch. She can talk to kings and commoners, and in an inquiry will get her sleeves rolled up and work with her detectives."
As she rose through the ranks in the late 70s and early 80s – when the Met was not known to be a female friendly environment – Akers brushed up against the prejudice most women at the time faced. At one time, she was routinely harassed by her boss for being the only woman in her department.
"When I was a young detective constable, I was very conscious that I was a woman," she said a few years ago. "I attracted unwarranted attention from my boss. There was no culture of whistleblowing then, so you had to think of creative ways to protect yourself. I told everyone in my office and they looked out for me."
Today she still takes support from her peers at Scotland Yard, friends say. "She has a good network around her, particularly from some of the senior female officers, they all provide support for each other," said Cindy Butts, who was a member of the now defunct Metropolitan police authority. "She is steely but she is also approachable and likable. She is ambitious but not power hungry and she has heaps of integrity."
There have, nevertheless, been controversies in a career of 36 years. During Lord Laming's inquiry into the death in 2000 of Victoria Climbie, Akers accused a colleague – Detective Chief Inspector Philip Wheeler – of lying when he suggested he had raised concerns about child protection in north-west London before the girl was killed. He went on to be heavily criticised in the inquiry report.
Akers, then a detective superintendent in the area with specific responsibility for managing child protection teams, was also criticised by Lord Laming. She and two other senior officers were said to have "completely let down" a constable who failed to identify the horrific abuse of the child.
In 2010, after a 10-year battle to clear his name, Wheeler was cleared of dereliction of duty. His claim that he had warned senior bosses of failures in the system before Climbie's death was upheld, and the chief constable who cleared him said the allegations made at the Laming inquiry against him had been retracted.
Butts, who knows Akers well, said she is the sort of person to absorb any knocks. "From what I know of Sue if she was criticised or if she had done something wrong and there were lessons to be learnt, she would be big enough to learn those lessons and move on," she said.
Privately, Akers is known to be great company. Not for her champagne or top London restaurants, rather a night down the pub for a natter. She has been known to return to bars near Scotland Yard hunting for her handbag after a hard night out.
But she has run into trouble at social events. Akers, the first woman in the Met to carry a gun, was introduced at a party in 2006 to a firearms officer reputed to have the best aim in Scotland Yard.
As she shook his hand, Akers joked: "I've always wanted to meet the Met's very own serial killer." The officer filed a complaint. Scotland Yard settled out of court and he was paid £5,000.
Those who know Akers say the Met is her life and, as the force struggles for its reputation, some say her performance at the Leveson inquiry showed she is not averse to showing her loyalty.
With criminal proceedings active and 10 journalists suspected of making illegal payments to public officials, on police bail, Akers chose to give details of her continuing inquiries to Leveson, highlighting individual cases. Sources said the decision not to give an anodyne statement was deliberate. One said: "She was hitting back, she was saying 'hold on a minute', she was cutting through all the noise." Another said: "She probably judged that it was ok for her career to say the things she said."
Others observers – including several criminal defence lawyers – were left asking whether such a senior officer should have done so. "I was surprised a the amount of detail she went into to be honest," said Jenny Jones, a Green party member of the London assembly. "It was very dangerous territory to get into."
If there was criticism for what she said, Akers did not hear it. After delivering her evidence she departed on holiday before embarking on the next stage of her investigations.