The disgraced officer was caught taking two packets of crisps and loose change from another officer’s locker
A Met police officer who ‘stole’ two packets of crisps from a colleague’s locker would have been sacked from the force had he not already left and been banned from policing.
At a misconduct hearing for former detective constable James Quigley on August 19, it was heard that the officer had taken two packets of Walkers crisps and loose change from a colleague’s locker. When police later searched his home, they also found two police batons in his basement, which the officer shouldn’t have had.
The bizarre chain of events happened at Bromley Police Station on February 19, 2024, when a police constable discovered a Waitrose shopping bag in his locker containing a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps, a packet of Ready Salted crisps, approximately £20–£30 in loose change, and pin badges was no longer there.
The PC did not know Quigley before the incident, but said he had heard the “banging of locker doors being closed” as he walked into the locker room and found Quigley “pulling his hand away” from his locker. Quigley did not have his own locker in the room.
The PC said he could not find his locker key in its usual hiding place, and when he asked Quigley if he’d seen it, he ‘defensively’ snapped; “No, you can check my pockets if you want,” and began turning his pockets out, all while holding a green Waitrose bag like the one the PC had lost.
The PC then reported the incident, saying Quigley was ‘looking panicked.’ The panel heard that Quigley was found at his desk with a green Waitrose bag, and was asked to step outside the CID room by a senior officer who noticed he was “sweating” and appeared “out of breath”. When asked why he was in the locker room, Quigley claimed he was there to search for a polythene bag for his food.
While this was happening, another officer looked inside the bag and noticed the same flavour of crisp packets that had gone missing were inside. The panel concluded that, while the two flavours of crisps were “common”, they were, “on the balance of probabilities”, the same packets, and that Quigley had stolen them from the other police officer.
Quigley denied stealing anything from the other officer’s locker room and claimed he had picked up the Waitrose bag to carry his own meal, and that the bags of crisps found inside were ones he had taken from home.
In search of the missing money and pin badges, police searched the station, the officer’s personal desk and spaces, his car, and later his home. Neither the money nor the badges were located, but officers found two police batons at his home that he should not have had.
Quigley said that, as he had no time to get rid of the money or badges before being arrested and that they were not found at the police station, he could not have been responsible for taking them.
Of the police batons found in his basement, he claimed they were for training, saying he had forgotten he still had them and that he would have returned them. The panel ruled there was no evidence that the batons were used inappropriately, but said it still amounted to misconduct.
The panel found Quigley guilty of gross misconduct and ruled that had he still been serving, he would have been dismissed from the force. He was placed on the College of Policing barred list and can never serve as a police officer again.
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