Plain-clothes Met police officers will now have to video call a uniformed colleague to confirm their identity when stopping a woman who is alone.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick told members of the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee that this new system will be introduced after the murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer who staged a fake arrest.

The police force has come under scrutiny after suggesting women who doubt the legitimacy of the police officer stopping them should run to a nearby house or flag down a bus.

When asked whether the advice had been reviewed, Dame Cressida told the committee: “I completely understand why that ended up as the headline. It was not intended, and it is not how we see things. Yes we have reviewed it and I think we would address the question differently were it to come again in the future.

“What I can say today is that we are launching our Safe Connection, as we call it, which allows a woman who is stopped by such a police officer immediately to have verification that this is a police officer.

Tottenham Independent: Plain clothes police officers to use video call to officers to confirm identity (Family/CPS/PA)Plain clothes police officers to use video call to officers to confirm identity (Family/CPS/PA)

“Because my plain-clothes officers will call into a control room, they will then have a video call with a sergeant in uniform who will say ‘yes that’s so-and-so, he’s PC XYZ’. So a quick and easy way which is instigated by the officer, not by the woman having to ask for this.”

Prior to this, Wiltshire Police already announced a scheme where officers put their personal radio on loudspeaker and ask their control room to confirm their identity.

The Police Commissioner stressed that flagging down a bus is advice given “if all else fails”.

She said: “I want to be clear, the onus is on the officer.

“The onus is on the officer to deal professionally with the person that they are speaking to, and in the very unusual circumstance in which a plain-clothes officer is talking to a lone female, which is likely to be extremely unusual in London, we would expect them to go to every effort first of all to recognise that the woman may feel uncomfortable, to explain themselves well, to identify themselves well.

“It would normally be the case that they would be in a pair anyway.”

After the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, concerns were raised about the safety of women being stopped by lone police officers.

Everard’s murderer had previously been accused of indecent exposure in 2015 and in the days before the murder.

Police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct is considering whether the allegations were investigated properly by Kent Police and the Metropolitan Police.