Peter John Michael Clarke, CVO, OBE, QPM (born 27 July 1955) is a retired senior police officer with London's Metropolitan Police most notably having served as a Deputy Assistant Commissioner with the Specialist Operations directorate, commanding the Counter Terrorism Command.
Subsequently, promoted, Clarke became Operations Chief, Central London division in 1990 and staff officer to the Met commissioner in 1993 followed by three years as divisional commander, Brixton from 1994 to 1997.
In June 2002, Clarke became head of the Anti-terrorist Branch, later merged with Special Branch to form the Counter Terrorist Command, a role which put him in direct control of the investigations into the 7 July attacks on London, the failed bomb attempts of 21 July 2005 and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.
This has including extended detention before charge for terrorist suspects, giving examples of where it has sometimes proven necessary to make arrests at an early stage in inquiries to protect the public sufficiently.
[3][4] In April 2014, he was appointed to lead an investigation into Operation Trojan Horse, an alleged plot by Islamists to take over schools in Birmingham.