A corrupt former Metropolitan Police sergeant has been jailed for seven and a half years for taking bribes while policing London’s West End bars and nightclubs.
Frank Partridge, 50, was found guilty of four counts of bribery and cleared of a further count of bribery by a jury on July 12.
Jurors found he accepted a luxury family holiday to Morocco worth almost £7,000, tickets to exclusive events including a party held by Elton John, and renovation work to his home worth nearly £8,000 while working in the Westminster Licensing Unit between 2013 and 2015.
He was responsible for consulting with the local authority over applications for licensed premises and supervising venues to ensure they were complying with conditions, his trial at Southwark Crown Court heard.
While there is some evidence of you performing your duties efficiently and effectively, that sadly pales into insignificance when set against the other evidence in the trial, which revealed a rapid descent into wholesale corruption, dishonesty and complete disregard of your obligations as a police officer— Judge Christopher Hehir
Jurors heard Partridge, who left the Met in 2016, formed an “unprofessional and inappropriately close” relationship with people linked to West End nightclubs and security firms, including Cirque le Soir nightclub owner Ryan Bishti.
Prosecutor Philip Evans KC told jurors at the start of the trial: “Those relationships directly benefitted Frank Partridge financially and the individuals because they had someone with Frank Partridge’s powers in their pocket.”
Partridge “developed and nurtured” relationships with those he was charged with policing “for his own benefit and, in turn, for their benefit” and there was “no sensible” explanation for what was happening, Mr Evans said.
The former officer told jurors he now lives in Spain and that he believed his work was “always impartial”.
Patrick Gibbs KC, defending, said Partridge became “bedazzled by the glitz and glamour of this lifestyle” and added that the six-and-a-half-year delay between his arrest and charge was not the defendant’s fault.
He said: “You are sentencing today a man who isn’t the same man who committed the offences of which the jury convicted him, partly a function of delay and partly a function of reform and realisation on his part.”
Mr Gibbs added that Partridge will lose his police pension apart from his own contributions.
He added: “Before he was deployed to the Licensing Unit there’s reason to suppose that he was a very good police officer. He’s a lifetime officer joining at 17, knowing nothing else.
“Some of the strengths that made him a good officer in his previous deployments probably contributed to the parts of his licensing job that he did well but he also did parts of his licensing work extremely badly and criminally so.
“Licensing was more or less disastrous for him in facilitating his drinking and it contributed to the worsening of his drinking, including at lunchtime while on duty.
“He became perhaps bedazzled by the glitz and glamour of this lifestyle.”
He added: “It appears to have begun with real friendships and in some instances never went beyond true friendships and that it only later turned into something else.
“He’s not a wicked man, he didn’t go to licensing as a wicked man hoping to be corrupted, looking to be corrupted but he was a greedy, perhaps, man, a weak man who too readily accepted that which he was offered.”
Judge Christopher Hehir said: “The story behind these verdicts is a troubling, disappointing and also in parts a sleazy one.
“You were a sergeant, you’d been a police officer since 1992, shortly after you left school.
“There’s evidence of a positively good performance to these duties at times but everything changed in 2013 when you became a sergeant in the police Licensing Unit attached to Westminster City Council.”
He added: “While there is some evidence of you performing your duties efficiently and effectively, that sadly pales into insignificance when set against the other evidence in the trial, which revealed a rapid descent into wholesale corruption, dishonesty and complete disregard of your obligations as a police officer.
“What you did was to accept substantial bribes from people who owned or had interests in nightclubs or who provided security to such venues.
“You were now mixing with very wealthy individuals and ended up wanting some of what they had.”
The judge added that he was “satisfied to the criminal standard” that Partridge did use the services of an escort despite denying it.
Partridge was handed seven and a half years in prison, of which he will serve half before being released on licence.
The defendant blew a kiss to the public gallery after he was sentenced.
Bishti, 43, Anna Ginandes, 46, Terry Neil, 56, and a man who cannot be named for legal reasons were found guilty of one count each of bribery.
Neil and Ginandes were also found not guilty of one count of bribery each.
Soraya Henderson and Eamonn Mulholland were cleared of all wrongdoing.
Partridge’s co-defendants who were convicted will be sentenced on September 21.
