(UK) - Brian Paddick, the former deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, today pledged to bring about a "dramatic" effect on crime and disorder if elected as London mayor. Paddick, 49, was the highest-ranking openly Gay officer in the Metropolitan police before he retired in May. A London-born Oxford graduate who worked his way up through the ranks, he was a sergeant on the front line in the Brixton riots of 1981 and returned to the area when he became the Met's commander in Lambeth in 2000. His critics dubbed him "Commander Crackpot" after he ordered officers in Brixton not to arrest or charge people found in possession of cannabis - three years before the government downgraded the drug from class B to class C.
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