Guilty: Frank Partridge

A “SHERIFF of Soho” who accepted backhanders from West End venues to influence licensing hearings has been found guilty of bribery.

Police Sergeant Frank Partridge, 50, accepted money, gifts and hospitality – including Metallica gig tickets, exotic holidays and sex worker services – to make favourable recommendations to Westminster City Council’s licensing unit over several years until 2016.

He sought to sway licensing hearings while also protecting venues from enforcement activity. He is due to be sentenced on Tuesday.

Met police Commander James Harman said: “He developed unprofessional and inappropriately close relationships with people who owned, ran or were linked to those premises as well as with firms providing security to the venues.”

The Metropolitan Police Service said the court had heard Partridge took bribes from four groups of people linked to venues or security companies in the West End.

The bribes included free meals and drinks, bespoke tailored clothing, tickets to exclusive events, free tickets and a family holiday to Morocco worth almost £7,000 – although Partridge never took the holiday due to his arrest.

The MPS said that Partridge, who called himself the “Sheriff of Soho”, would fail to carry out his duties after receiving bribes and downplay allegations. In September 2014 Partridge told licensing that a police investigation into a rape at a venue had ended with no further action several months before it actually did “to paint a better view of the venue before a licensing hearing”, the MPS said after the judgment.

His evidence to the committee helped stop revocation of the club’s licence that would have meant a significant loss of revenue to its owners, one of whom was also convicted of bribery on Tuesday.

Partridge joined the Met in May 1992 and worked in clubs and vice and gangs units before joining Westminster police licensing unit in early 2013. He was initially dismissed in April 2016 for gross misconduct after using his MPS badge to travel first class on train carriages.

Commander Harman added: “This case is a clear example of the robust approach we take to corruption. Where a crime has been committed we will investigate and bring it before the courts, dealing not just with our own but also with those who seek to influence and corrupt our officers and staff.”

The MPS said it had already brought in reforms to “minimise the chance of this ever happening again” following the verdict in the three-month trial at Southwark Crown Court.

They said the investigation into Partridge – called Operation Joseph – had been used as a textbook case study on what officers should do when “corrupt approaches” were made.

The court heard Partridge, formerly from Wing in Buckinghamshire, was now living in Spain. At an earlier hearing he had pleaded guilty to three counts of bribery between February 2013 and June 2015. He was found guilty of another four counts of bribery and acquitted of one count.

Four others were convicted as part of the bribery investigation.