Met Police: Cdr Julian Bennett smoked cannabis before breakfast, lodger says

Cdr Julian Bennett wrote the Met Police's anti-drug strategy

A senior Metropolitan Police officer who wrote the force's anti-drugs strategy took LSD and magic mushrooms while off duty and smoked cannabis before work, a tribunal has heard.

Cdr Julian Bennett is also accused of failing to provide a sample for testing and lying about why he would not do so.

The officer is facing a gross misconduct hearing over three allegations of discreditable conduct.

Cdr Bennett, who joined the Met in 1976, denies all the allegations.

He has been suspended on full pay since July 2020.

The hearing in central London was told that in the autumn of 2019, Cdr Bennett regularly smoked cannabis before work.

'Denying it'

Sheila Gomes, a nurse who used to live at the officer's flat, told the hearing: "It would start early in the morning, before breakfast and before he would leave and go to work."

She said he was "extremely controlling", "anxious" and "narcissistic".

"He is still denying it," she told the hearing. "He is still denying something that I saw in front of me when I was living with him."

She also told the tribunal she had received threatening messages after reporting the allegations but they were not said to have come from the officer.

Mark Ley-Morgan KC, representing the Met, told the panel Ms Gomes had taken photos of a bag of cannabis, cigarette papers, tobacco and lighters lying on a glass table in the living room of Cdr Bennett's flat.

He said that in July 2020, she contacted the force to report Cdr Bennett's cannabis habit.

'Nonsensical explanation'

Mr Ley-Morgan told the hearing that after a drugs test was authorised a few days later, Cdr Bennett refused to provide a sample and asked to resign.

Cdr Bennett told officers he had been taking CBD (cannabidiol), which contains cannabis and is legal in the UK, to treat facial palsy. He added that he was worried the sample would come up positive for an innocent reason, the tribunal heard.

Mr Ley-Morgan said this explanation was "nonsensical", as the test would have resulted in a much lower reading if cannabis was not being used recreationally.

The hearing was also told the allegations about magic mushrooms and LSD were "hearsay" - rumours Ms Gomes heard from another person who was living with them.

Cdr Bennett wrote the force's drugs strategy for 2017-21, which sets out plans to raise "awareness of the impact of drug misuse".

According to information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Cdr Bennet himself presided over 74 police misconduct hearings involving 90 officers between June 2010 and February 2012.

The tribunal continues.

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