Ex-Met Officer filmed making rape jokes committed gross misconduct
A former Metropolitan Police officer who was secretly filmed joking about rape and sexual assault has been found to have committed gross misconduct by a court.
Former police officer Brian Sharkey, who retired in May 2025, was told at a misconduct hearing in south London that he made a series of comments belittling claims of racial bias and talking about the destruction of evidence in undercover footage broadcast in a BBC Panorama documentary in October.
Cllr Stephen Clayman, chairman of the panel, which found his conduct breached professional standards and amounted to gross misconduct, said of Mr Sharkey’s comment on sexual offenses: “This undermines public confidence in policing at a time when police forces, and particularly the Met Police, are seeking to demonstrate how seriously they take violent crime against women and girls.”
At a bar after his shift in January last year, Mr Sharkey’s colleagues were discussing a police officer getting away with a sexual assault charge, the court previously heard.
Footage released on Friday following that argument showed Mr Sharkey saying: “If you’re going to be accused of this, you might as well do it.
“If you go to court for sexual assault, you can also sue for rape.”
He added: “Please, this is a joke. I challenge myself on this.”
He later said: “That was wrong, I’m sorry.”
Cecily White, of the Met Police, told the court it was “clear” he was joking, adding: “For an officer to joke about allegations of sexual assault or rape, especially to other colleagues… (this) can undermine public trust and confidence because it can make the public think that such allegations are not particularly serious. They are just a joke, just a laughing matter.”
“They can give the impression that they will not be taken seriously.”
Giving evidence, Mr Sharkey told the panel that after the discussion about sexual assault “something else was said” and the conversation turned to a culture of defiance at the Met.
He claimed that he wanted to provide an “example” of how placing too much emphasis on “trivial issues” can dilute the impact of more serious issues, but admitted that it was a “bad example” and “very, very, very wrong”.
“I take sexual assault very, very seriously, absolutely do not underestimate it,” he said.
“I regret it, I regretted it from the very beginning.”
In August 2024, Mr Sharkey was filmed telling the undercover journalist while taking a break from his night shift: “You stop a toerag because it’s useless, you can’t find anything about it ‘well you’re just stopping me ’cause I’m black or you’re just stopping me ’cause I’m this or you’re just stopping me ’cause I’m this’ and you get a mouthful of nonsense from them.”
Ms. White argued that the officer at the time treated allegations of racial bias as “false excuses.”
“The use of stop and search powers, particularly against black and minority communities, is a matter of legitimate public concern of which this officer was aware or should have been aware,” the Met’s lawyer said.
Mr Sharkey said at the misconduct hearing that he was “not a racist at all” and would have given more examples rather than just saying “this and that” but that he was “tongue-tied”.
He said he believed abuse of power due to racial prejudice was “a cause for concern” and added: “I’m not trying to trivialize that in any way, that wasn’t my intention.”
Mr Sharkey was also captured on video talking to the undercover journalist about who would be detained during the bar evening in January last year.
He said: “If it’s an office worker who got the first part of an A – I’m not saying do it because I might have, I might not have – it’s ‘oh shit mate, I dropped it, oh shit I don’t have any proof anymore’.”
If it were someone with a criminal record, it would be a different set of rules, Mr. Sharkey added.
The former police officer said he wasn’t talking about himself but told a story from his days on probation nearly 20 years ago, the panel heard.
“I explained it wrong, but that gave him the impression that it was me,” he said Friday.
The board decided that his comments amounted to a breach of standards of professional conduct in respect of authority, respect and courtesy, discreditable conduct and equality and diversity.
Mr Sharkey was also filmed making sexual innuendos to colleagues but the board did not rule that the comment breached professional standards.
On October 1 last year, Panorama published footage taken by an undercover BBC journalist working as a designated probation officer at Charing Cross police station lockup.
A further seven police officers were sacked following the BBC investigation.
Last year Pc Sean Park, Sgt Lawrence Hume, Sgt Clayton Robinson, Pc Jason Sinclair-Birt, Pc Philip Neilson, Pc Martin Borg and Sgt Joe McIlvenny were dismissed without notice at separate hearings after they were found to have committed gross misconduct.
The trial continues.
