Ex-Met Police officer admits to accepting Metallica tickets as a bribe

A Met Police officer has admitted to accepting Metallica tickets for his mother-in-law’s 60th birthday as a bribe.

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Ex-Sergeant Frank Partridge told Southward Crown Court yesterday (Tuesday) that he admitted accepting gifts, which also included a luxury holiday to Morocco, and a monogrammed made-to-measure suit while policing London’s West End between 2013 and 2015.

Partridge said he accepted the gifts from “friends”, because “I had made myself confident I could accept those gifts because there was nothing in it at all”.

“Back then I did a lot of stupid things over that time. I realise that now but that definitely wasn’t one of them.”

“I accept now, wrongly, at the time I accepted gifts, but at the time I had convinced myself it was OK because my performance was not improper,” he continued. “Now I can see how it looks and I shouldn’t have accepted those gifts because of my position.”

Partridge was first arrested at Scotland Yard on 24 June 2015, after spending the night at the flat of Cirque le Soir owner Ryan Bishti. He was then sacked from the Metropolitan Police in 2016 following misconduct proceedings after he travelled four times in a first-class train carriage using second class tickets.

He told jurors that he now lives in Spain with his wife, and has been sober for three and a half years. He is on trial with seven other individuals, including Bishti.

Partridge has admitted to three charges of bribery, but denies five further counts. The others each deny two counts of bribery.

To which Metallica concert Partridge received tickets for is unclear, though as he was first arrested in 2015, the show would have been prior to the release of the band’s 2016 album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct.

The trial continues.