For most of her 3½ years as NSW Police Commissioner, Karen Webb hasn’t felt safe in the job. There was always a fear that haters, as she once put it in an ill-judged reference to Taylor Swift, were leaking against her, that powerful sections of the media wanted her gone, and that the criticism of her weak public performances dented her support among the troops.

Recently, that feeling must have ramped up. There has been speculation swirling for months that the premier’s office has been distancing itself from her, and that Webb had lost the support of the powerful, Labor-aligned NSW Police Association (the association did not comment). A story that appeared in The Daily Telegraph in January, saying she was considering early retirement, is said to have taken Webb by surprise.

Police Commissioner Karen Webb has suffered leaks and negative media attention in her three years in the top job.Credit: Rhett Wyman

At least she now has some certainty. On Wednesday, Webb announced her resignation.

The government insists the decision was Webb’s. The premature sacking of the first female police commissioner would be, as its media advisers would say, bad optics. And there was a time when senior people in the government quietly described the attacks on Webb as sexist. But several police sources, speaking on the condition of anonymity so they could talk freely, say that in the end, she was explicitly encouraged to go.

The timing was highly unusual; commissioners, even unpopular or unhappy ones, usually see out their tenure. When asked by this masthead in March if she planned to leave early, Webb said she had more work to do. No police boss has left so prematurely since the passing of the Police Act of 1990, which set their incumbency at five years. Before Webb, the shortest-serving commissioner in the past 40 years........

© The Sydney Morning Herald