By James Simons-
A senior Metropolitan police commander has embarrassed the force, after it was revealed that he wrote the force’s drug strategy and regularly smoked cannabis before going to work, a tribunal has heard.
His cover was blown by a nurse this week who lived with Julian Bennett towards the end of 2019 described the flat as “like an Amsterdam coffee shop”.
AD: Capeesh Restaurant
Sheila Gomes told the tribunal in Southwark, south London: “It [the cannabis use] would start early in the morning, before breakfast, and before he would leave and go to work.
“Sometimes, when he was arriving at home, it was there. I never saw him eat before going to work.”
The hearing was told that there were “hearsay” allegations that Bennett took magic mushrooms on holiday in France and LSD at a party, which Gomes was told by a housemate of hers and the officer’s.
AD: Oysterian Sea Food Restaurant And Bar
The tribunal heard that, while staying with Bennett, Gomes sent a message to a friend in which she referred to the officer smoking cannabis at the flat and, on 7 December 2019, she used her phone to take photos of a bag of cannabis, cigarette paper, tobacco and lighters lying on a glass table in the living room.
The disciplinary panel was told that Gomes stayed at the flat from mid-October to just before Christmas 2019.
“I didn’t like it at all,” she said. “Why did I have to live in a place where it was just cannabis in the air? I was just trying to breathe oxygen.
“He [Bennett] was the one who was using the cannabis, I will say a few times during the day he would bring it in. If he would go to work, [he would do it] at least before going to work and arriving at home.”
She called the Met on 17 July 2020 to report that Bennett had been smoking cannabis before work, the panel heard. She said she never saw him in uniform and did not realise that he was a police officer until after she stopped living with him. Gomes described his behaviour as “erratic” and called him “controlling” – for continuously asking her about her work rota – and “very anxious”.
She said: “He is still denying something that I saw in front of me when I was living with him.”
Mark Ley-Morgan KC, representing the Met, said a drugs test was authorised on 20 July 2020. When Bennett was asked to provide a sample a day later, he refused and offered to resign instead.
He told officers that he had been taking CBD (cannabidiol) to treat facial palsy and was worried the sample would come up positive for an innocent reason, the tribunal heard.
Ley-Morgan claimed that the explanation was “nonsensical” as it would have come up with a much lower reading than if it was being used recreationally.
Bennett, who joined the Met in 1976, wrote the force’s drugs strategy for 2017-21 as a commander for territorial policing. He presided over 74 police misconduct hearings – 69 as chair – between June 2010 and February 2012, which led to the dismissal of 56 officers, earning him the nickname “Sacker”.
After joining the Met in 1976, Cdr Bennett -the now shamed officer- was elevated to the position of commander for territorial policing; one rank behind Deputy Assistant Commissioner and three positions away from Commissioner – the top policing job in the country.
“It [the weed smoking] would start early in the morning,” Gomes testified this week. “Before breakfast and before he would leave and go to work”. She added that the flat was “like an Amsterdam coffee shop”. That year, while Cdr Bennett was allegedly getting high and hosting parties in his flat, there were 682 people in prison in England and Wales for cannabis offences and the police had busted people with weed and seized the plant over 130,000 times.
He is accused of gross misconduct for using controlled drugs, refusing to provide a sample for a drugs test and lying about the reason for not providing a sample.
He denies the allegations and has been suspended on full pay since July 2021.
The tribunal is expected to last all week.
AD: Heritage And Restaurant Lounge Bar