UK: Met police commander who drafted anti-drug policy fired for refusing a drug test

Senior Metropolitan Police officer Commander Julian Bennett, who developed the force’s anti-drug policy, was fired for refusing to give a sample after he was suspected of consuming marijuana. Bennett, who joined the force in 1976, was discovered to have neglected to submit a urine sample for a drugs test on July 21, 2020, despite having previously been cleared by a disciplinary panel for using the substance at home in late 2019. Consequently, he was placed under full pay suspension in July 2021 while police launched an inquiry that was completed yesterday. Bennett was fired after it was determined that his refusal to take the drug test constituted serious misconduct. The three-person panel disregarded Sheila Gomes’s accusation that Bennett had used the illegal narcotic every day before going for work at New Scotland Yard and breakfast. The panel also disregarded a claim that he had provided a justification for turning down a sample that he “knew to be untrue.” Bennett was brought in and requested to produce a sample in front of an assistant commissioner following Gomes’ July 2020 report on him. Instead, he made the offer to quit immediately. Bennett’s attorney, John Beggs KC, called Gomes a “liar” and a “fantasist” at the Southwark, London, trial, claiming she was only interested in writing a book about the allegations in order to profit from it. The tribunal also learned that Gomes was a litigant in Portugal, her birthplace, and was involved in litigation over unrelated matters. Beggs further asserted that she was being contradictory by stating that she had seen a newspaper clipping about Bennett that made no mention of his employment and that she had provided conflicting information regarding whether the senior officer had been smoking marijuana “from day one” of moving in. Bennett was judged to have violated commands and instructions, discreditable conduct, and force standards for honesty and integrity by neglecting to give the sample. It was determined that he had engaged in gross misconduct. Bennett was the commander for territory policing and drafted the force’s drugs strategy for 2017–21. Bennett presided over 74 police misconduct proceedings involving 90 officers between June 2010 and February 2012, according to requests for access to information. More than three-quarters of the policemen removed during the Bennett hearings totaled 56. According to the statistics, he presided over 69 sessions at which time two officers were fired for drug abuse. Claims that he consumed LSD at a party and magic mushrooms while on vacation in France were rejected as hearsay by the panel at the tribunal hearing held this summer. Hugo Pereria, who resided with Bennett and the complainant Sheila Gomes in late 2019, made those assertions; however, the tribunal was informed that he “always lied” prior to the panel dismissing the claims. Bennett intends to file an appeal against the panel’s ruling.