Corrupt cop called ‘Sheriff of Soho’ jailed for seven years after taking bribes
A bent copper known as ‘The Sheriff of Soho’ has been jailed for more than seven years after taking bribes worth thousands of pounds while policing bars and restaurants across the West End.
Frank Partridge, 50, 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.
The former Met Police sergeant was responsible for consulting with town hall bosses over applications for licensed premises and supervising venues to ensure they were complying with conditions.
But Southwark Crown Court heard he 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.
Detectives found a video of him being whipped by a dominatrix dressed as Catwoman on Mr Bishti’s phone, jurors were told, with the club owner later texting a friend saying he had an ‘ace card’.
Prosecutor Philip Evans KC told them: ‘Those relationships directly benefitted Frank Partridge financially and the individuals because they had someone with Frank Partridge’s powers in their pocket.’
Partridge was found guilty of four counts of bribery and cleared of a further count of bribery by a jury on July 12.
Patrick Gibbs KC, defending, said Partridge became ‘bedazzled by the glitz and glamour of this lifestyle’.
Citing the six and a half year delay between his arrest and charge, 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.
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