Missed drugs test Met officer faces fresh probe

Cdr Julian Bennett at last year's misconduct hearing

A senior police officer who was sacked for refusing to take a drugs test but reinstated on appeal has been suspended from duty and will face a fresh misconduct hearing.

Cdr Julian Bennett, who wrote the Metropolitan Police force's drugs strategy for 2017-21 as a commander for territorial policing, failed to provide a urine sample for a drugs test in July 2020.

Cdr Bennett took his case to the Police Appeals Tribunal in July and had his sacking from the force overturned but on Monday the Met said he had been suspended ahead of the new hearing.

Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said: "We regret that the tribunal's decision further prolongs this very long-running case."

He added: "The tribunal has reinstated Commander Bennett, and the Met has taken the decision to suspend him from duty.

"The tribunal has directed that a new hearing be held and, as a matter of law, this will now happen. That hearing will be led by an independent, legally qualified chair.

"We know that the public and hard-working colleagues across the Met will want this case resolved quickly, and so we are doing all we can to support the hearing taking place as swiftly as possible."

'Cannabis before breakfast' claim

Cdr Bennett, who served in the force from 1976, was sacked after he was found to have committed gross misconduct by failing to provide a urine sample for a drugs test on 21 July 2020.

In October last year, a disciplinary panel rejected a claim by Cdr Bennett's former flatmate Sheila Gomes that he had used cannabis daily before breakfast.

But it found that he had breached professional standards by refusing to provide a sample for a drugs test when called in to do so in the presence of an assistant commissioner.

He offered to resign on the spot instead and asked for a meeting with then-Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick.

Cdr Bennett said he had been taking CBD (cannabidiol) to treat facial palsy and was worried the sample would come up positive for an innocent reason.

He chaired disciplinary panels over several years, with freedom of information requests showing he presided over 74 misconduct hearings involving 90 officers between June 2010 and February 2012.

Out of the hearings involving Cd Bennett, 56 officers were dismissed, more than three-quarters. Two officers were dismissed for drug misuse, the figures showed.