Nightclub boss is jailed for four years for paying bribes to corrupt Met Police officer ‘Sheriff of Soho’ who turned a blind eye to crime by accepting free holidays, nights with call girls and whipping sessions with a dominatrix
A nightclub boss who described a corrupt cop as ‘his ace’ and lavished him with bribes including free holidays, whipping sessions with a dominatrix and nights with call girls has been jailed for four years.
In June, corrupt cop Frank Partridge was jailed for seven and a half years after turning a blind eye to fights and allegations of sexual assault at the Soho club in return for fine dining, tailored suits, call girls, hotel stays and house renovation.
Ex-sergeant Partridge, 50, dubbed the ‘The Sheriff of Soho’ was caught out by a video showing him cavorting with a dominatrix at the Cirque Le Soir, owned by Ryan Bishti.
Bishti, along with Terry Neil, 55, the boss of security firm TSS, and nightclub owner Anna Ginandes, 45, were all convicted of one charge of bribery by a jury at Southwark Crown Court.
Entrepreneur Bishti provided the bent cop with hotel stays, fine dining, a £200 VIP Wireless Festival package and tickets for his mother-in-law to see heavy metal band Metallica in Milan for her 60th birthday.
Cirque de Soir nighclub owner Ryan Bishti has been jailed for four years after being convicted of bribery
Frank Partridge was sacked from his role at the Met Police licensing unit in 2016
Partridge was jailed for seven and a half years after turning a blind eye to fights and allegations of sexual assault at the Soho club Cirque le Soir
The corrupt police sergeant (left) was caught out after video footage showed him cavorting with a dominatrix dressed as Catwoman
Bishti also provided professional escorts for Partridge and paid for the renovation of his house.
READ MORE: Corrupt Met Police officer dubbed ‘Sheriff of Soho’ who took bribes from nightclub bosses in return for Elton John and Premier League tickets and nights with call girls is jailed for more than seven years
He took an £8,000 all-expenses paid luxury holiday for his family in Morocco and accepted a £3,000-a head ticket for a charity party at Elton John’s Berkshire home.
Detectives found a video of him being whipped by a dominatrix dressed as Catwoman, on the phone of 43-year-old Bishti.
Partridge was pictured with a leash around his neck and wearing cat ears as the woman gyrates around the laughing police sergeant.
After taking the video Bishti texted a friend saying he had an ‘ace card’ as he a police officer in his pocket.
In other footage Partridge, known by colleagues as ‘Fun Time Frankie’, was seen with a large snake draped around his neck, miming to the hip hop anthem Sound of Da Police.
The former Met Police sergeant was also pictured with stars including Ellie Goulding at the decadent A-list venue Cirque Le Soir.
Partridge was convicted of four bribery charges including lavish dining and hospitality provided by Bishti after a two month trial in July. He was jailed for seven-and-a-half-years.
Judge Chris Hehir jailed Bishti for four years and ordered him to pay £40,000 in costs.
Bishti was jailed for four years for his actions and ordered to pay £40,000 in costs
Ealier this year was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for taking bribes including free holidays and tickets to events
He told Bishti: ‘You intentionally bribed a police officer and you did it in a sophisticated and protracted way.
‘And you got your mother involved.
‘The evidence clearly established that you benefited from having this ace card in your pocket.’
Neil was jailed for 30 months and ordered to pay £20,000 in costs.
Jailing Neil the judge said: ‘You clearly saw it as being in your interest to have a corrupt police officer in you pocket.
‘You weren’t buying Frank Partridge expensive suits and wining and dining him out of the goodness of your heart.
‘You did it for you own benefit.’
Ginandes was given a 20-month sentence, suspended for 12 months ordered to pay £10,000 costs, and fined of £5,000.
Judge Hehir told Ginandes: ‘You were not directly motivated by personal gain and you would not have known the full extent of your husband’s corrupt relationship with Frank Partridge.’
He said he had passed a suspended sentence because of the impact imprisoning her would have on her children.
Partridge, who has a wife and young children now living in Spain, was in charge of policing 3,000 clubs, bars and restaurants and had the power to close a venue.
The officer was responsible consulting with police at the City of Westminster Licensing Unit – the local authority responsible for granting licences to commercial premises who wanted to sell alcohol, situated most particularly in the West End of London.
Partridge joined the Met in 1992 as a police officer at Marylebone police station
Partridge (pictured in footage) took bribes in return for improperly doing his job as a licensing officer in the West End
‘In short, he was responsible for policing the licensed premises at the West End and the other defendants in this trial either worked in that licensed trade or had an indirect interest in it,’ said prosecutor Philip Evans.
‘He developed and nurtured relationships with those he was charged with policing, and he used those relationships for his own benefit and in turn for their benefit.’
READ MORE: Met Police sergeant, 49, came across ‘heavy-handed’ in meeting where he told a West End club to use an ‘entirely unsuitable’ security firm whose boss was paying him bribes, court hears
Mr Evans said the bribes ‘were intended either as a reward for Frank Partridge having performed his role as a police officer improperly in the past or they were paid with the intention of inducing him to do so in the future.’
A ‘shocking list’ of sexual assaults were said to have taken place at the Dstrkt nightclub and Partridge promised to review the venue’s licence.
Ginandes was a boss of the club and shutting it down would have led to to a ‘significant loss of revenue.’
She booked a holiday for Partridge and his family at the Mazagan Beach and Golf Resort in Morocco.
In an attempt to avoid suspicion, Ginandes told booking operators that Frank was her ‘cousin’ to give the impression she was arranging a surprise for him.
A licence committee later refused an application to revoke the venue’s licence after Partridge gave evidence in support of the club.
When there were minor problems with fights at the Sketch venue, Partridge told off the club’s lawyer Thomas O’Maoileoin like a ‘naughty schoolboy’ and bullied the company’s CEO into getting TSS to handle security.
He received bespoke suits and shirts paid for by Neil’s security firm TSS as well as a ticket for the party held by Elton John in September 2014 to raise money for his Aids Foundation charity.
Partridge was also gifted with a made-to-measure suit as well as tickets to events, including the Wireless Festival and a Metallica gig.
Ginandes treated Partridge and his wife to a £382.38 meal at the Sumosan Japanese restaurant in Mayfair.
Partridge insisted he bought Manchester United shirts himself including one signed by Rooney.
He said he bought tickets for a Manchester United derby game with Manchester City ‘at the ground.’
Frank Partridge with Elton John at The Woodside End Of Summer Party in 2014
Judge Chris Hehir concluded that Partridge had lied while giving evidence at this criminal trial
Video footage on Bishti’s phone showed Partridge (right) dancing with a leash around his neck at one of the club’s events
Partridge said he got on ‘very well’ with Mulholland, the owner of the West End nightclub ‘Beat’, as they both supported Manchester Utd.
He was asked about a night he spent at Bishti’s home at Ascensis Tower in Battersea after a night out on 23 June 2015 at the Colonial Club and the Hilton Hotel.
READ MORE: Sex workers and dominatrix that caught out Met Police ‘Sheriff of Soho’: Cop who turned a blind eye to crime in West End clubs was filmed with escorts, being whipped in A-list haunt, enjoying £3,000 Elton John bash and posing with Ellie Goulding
Partridge claimed he stayed there because it was close to Scotland Yard where he had a meeting the next morning.
‘It was purely because of the location. It was quite near Scotland Yard,’ he said.
He admitted he did see two women arrive at the flat, who were professional escorts.
CCTV shows the two women arriving at 3:30am on 24 June. Later, at 4:17am, Bishti can be seen in the lobby in his shorts, vest and socks.
The officer was asked if he had any idea what they did for a living, adding: ‘I just knew they were friends of Ryan’.
Bishti’s phone was later examined by police and a series of photos showed a woman wearing black trousers and a red bra.
Asked why he took the gifts, Partridge said: ‘I accepted from these people I thought were friends and still think of as friends. I made myself content that I could accept these gifts because there was nothing in it at all.’
Partridge joined the Met in May 1992 based as a bobby on the beat at Marylebone police station.
He first met Bishti in the late 1990’s when he was a promoter at the British Luxury Club.
Partridge later worked as part of the Metropolitan Police Clubs and Vice Unit who oversaw those providing security for licensed premises and the licensing trade organisations.
The crooked sergeant was sacked from the force in 2016 for abusing a travel scheme by travelling in first class carriages.
Richard Wormald, KC, defending Bishti, said on the scale of police bribery this was not the worst kind of offence.
Partridge bore the greatest responsibility for the offending, describing him as the ‘adult in the room’ who first approached Bishti after committing similar offences before.
‘By the time he was dealing with Mr Bishti he already had an idea about what he wanted.’
Corrupt Met sergeant Frank Partridge was seen meeting prostitutes at the home of Cirque le Soir founder Ryan Bishti, 43
Judge Hehir indicated that the fact he got his mother Pamela Bishti, 66, involved was an aggravating feature in Bishti’s case.
Pamela, of Croydon, had faces two counts of bribery but the prosecution offered no evidence against her today.
The judge said: ‘She would never have got caught up in all this were it not for her son’.
‘The whole reason she had been involved was that she had an interest in interior design and Mr Bishti wanted to do up Partridge’s house for him.’
Vivienne Tanchel, defending Ginandes, said she was the sole carer of her children, and that they would suffer if she were jailed as they have been ‘traumatised by these events.’
Nicola Howard, KC, defending Neil, urged the judge to pass a suspended sentence, saying he didn’t represent a risk to the public, and that since the offence he had been ‘entirely rehabilitated.’
‘There is no threat, there is not danger to the public,’ she said.
‘There is no suggestion of anything being covered up. There is no suggestion of cash payments.’
But Judge Hehir said: ‘ How does that mitigate?
‘It seems to me that Neil and Partridge were quite arrogant about what they were doing.
‘Mr Partridge was corrupted as soon as he accepted the bribes and Mr Neil knew full well that what he was doing was wrong by the standards of reasonable people.
‘Any bribery of a police officer, however small, is a matter of the utmost gravity.’
Partridge, of Wing, Buckinghamshire, denied five further charges of bribery, between 1 February 2013 and 25 June 2015 and was convicted of four.
Bishti, from south Kensington, Neil, of Slough, Berkshire and Ginandes, of Camden, were all convicted of one charge of bribery.
Soraya Henderson, 57, of High Wycombe, Bucks, and businessman Eamonn Mulholland, 55, of Islington, denied and were cleared of two bribery charges. The allegations against Mulholland included a signed Wayne Rooney shirt and Premier League games.
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