Police sergeant’s shameful lies after Soho door staff found friend’s cocaine at stag party

Police Sergeant Steven Smith was organizing a stag party in the city center when he pulled out his warrant card and approached door staff.

A police sergeant took out his warrant card and told the door staff he was testing them when he tried to collect a friend’s bag of cocaine. Former Merseyside Police sergeant Steven Smith was attending a stag party in the town center on August 12 last year when his group was subjected to a random search by gate staff at the Soho bar on Concert Square.

Door staff found a “small bag of white powder” and confiscated it. Sgt Smith then spoke to staff and presented his warrant card to identify himself as a police officer. He told them he was running a test on the staff and they passed it.

He then asked them to return the powder but was told the bag would be placed in a safe to be collected by Merseyside Police at a later date. Sgt Smith was due to appear before a professional misconduct hearing on November 18 to face allegations that he breached standards of professional behavior to the point of committing serious misconduct.

LEARN MORE: Witness holds back tears after fatal crash, says ‘they were just kids’LEARN MORE: Child sex offender dies at HMP Liverpool on day of sentencing for new offenses

He denied the allegations, but resigned from the force days before the misconduct hearing was held. He was not represented at the hearing, where a panel determined his conduct constituted serious misconduct. If he was still a serving officer, he would have been dismissed without notice and was also placed on the Police College’s banned list.

The hearing heard the off-duty officer was in the company of two friends when he approached the Soho bar at around 9pm on the day of the incident. The hearing heard he approached door staff and “repeatedly asked for the powder that had been seized, stating that they were fake medicines and that you were taking a test”.

The former officer said he was going to call if he didn’t get the bag back. It was later tested and found to be cocaine. In his first response, Smith said he had joined a bachelor party downtown consisting of 10 to 13 people of whom he only knew three well.

He claimed they played drinking games that involved the possibility of salt ending up in his drink. He said he then went to Soho where the bag of white powder was taken from the pocket of an unnamed friend. He claimed the bag was salt that another friend had brought for the drinking game.

He claimed one of the doormen passed the bag to another and said “we’ll have this mate, put it in your pocket”. He said the two door attendants “looked at each other with what is described as a smirk.” The officer said he wasn’t comfortable with what he saw because it appeared the doormen had pocketed something they thought was drugs instead of properly handling them.

The officer alleged the issue of Concert Square door staff selling drugs was raised at a recent briefing. He said he went back to speak informally with staff and was told to speak to the manager. When the manager came out, the police officer identified himself and presented his warrant card. Smith said that when he was shown the warrant card, the warden “became quite receptive and explained that the premises had a box that they put the suspected drugs in when they were seized.”

He said the director then pulled a bag of white powder from his pocket and asked him if that was what the officer was talking about. The officer said he did not believe the bag produced was the one in question. He said he then told his friends about what happened before calling it a night.

Smith denied behaving as described by door staff and said “he has never taken or been involved in drug use in his life.” He also claimed that the white powder was salt. But a representative for the force said the contents of the packet were irrelevant to the case because the officer’s conduct would still be dishonest and discreditable.

The force said the issues in dispute were very limited: former Sergeant Smith had repeatedly requested that the bag taken from his friend be returned to him and he claimed it was part of a test. The force said Smith’s role was to control the city’s night-time economy and the Soho bar is located in his area. They said it was reasonable to expect him to know the procedures used by door staff when seizing suspicious substances.

The panel found that Smith repeatedly asked door staff to return the bag taken from his friend. The panel said his claims that he had taken a test were a lie. The committee said: “When the door staff refused to comply with the police officer’s request, PS Smith presented his warrant card and identified himself as a police officer. The committee concludes that he did this to use his position as a police officer to gain an advantage. “.

The committee added that by presenting his warrant card, the former police officer put himself on duty. Each time this happened it would have been acceptable to record the incident in his police notebook, but he did not do so. The panel said that, on the balance of probabilities, the former sergeant never intended to report the incident.

The officer was found to have breached standards of professional behavior regarding honesty and integrity and engaged in dishonorable conduct. The panel said that, based on its findings, it concluded that a member of the public, properly informed of the facts, would be rightly shocked by his conduct and that their confidence in Merseyside Police would be seriously shaken.

The panel said the officer’s culpability and risk of damaging the force’s reputation was high, particularly as he was a sergeant. The committee also concluded that there were few mitigating factors since the officer timed his resignation to coincide with the hearing. He did not attend the hearing and presented no evidence in his favor.

The panel also noted that Smith faces numerous other allegations that have not yet been concluded. The panel concluded: “The action that can be taken is limited by the resignation of PS Smith from Merseyside Police. If he was still a serving officer, it would have been appropriate to dismiss PS Smith without notice. As it stands, the panel recommends that PS Smith This name should be added to the police banned list maintained by the College of Policing. »