Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman has been made a CBE in the Queen’s 80th Birthday Honours list.
Mr Hayman won widespread praise for the way the Metropolitan Police handled the aftermath of last year’s July bombings which saw a huge police presence on the streets in a bid to reassure the public.
More recently Hayman issued an apology to the community in Forest Gate after the raid which saw two brothers arrested and later released without charge.
The award has been attacked by a Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman who said “there is a case for changing the timing of this honour” in light of the Forest Gate raid.
Speaking on the BBC Today programme Chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, John Denham disagreed saying that “in practice it’s pretty difficult with something like the honours system to start saying perhaps it should have been postponed at the last moment.
That would have been misinterpreted in an equally damaging way.”
