A former Met Police officer who worked in the control room on Lambeth Road would have been fired after attacking a taxi driver if he had not already left the force, a misconduct hearing has heard.
Then-police constable James Gillies was off duty when he took a taxi in the seaside town of Eastbourne in February last year without having the money to pay for it. When he was asked to pay up, he verbally abused the driver and his colleague before punching the driver.
This amounts to gross misconduct according to the Met’s standards of professional behaviour, the independent chair of the hearing decided – meaning that if PC Gillies was still an officer he would be sacked without notice.
He will also be added to the College of Policing’s barred list – meaning he can never again work for the police, any local policing bodies, or police watchdogs the Independent Office for Police Conduct and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.