Met commander accused of drug use will fight to remain in job

The police commander who pioneered a controversial relaxation of rules on cannabis vowed to fight for his job yesterday as he faced an investigation into claims that he regularly used the drug himself.

Brian Paddick, who has been praised for his "innovative" policing in the crime hotspot of Lambeth, south London, said he was devastated by lurid allegations about his private life made by a former partner.

The 43-year-old officer strenuously denied claims from James Renolleau, his partner for five years, that they shared at least 100 cannabis joints at their Westminster flat during their relationship.

Mr Renolleau, a former model, told a Sunday newspaper that Mr Paddick had allowed him to keep a stash of the drug in their home and allowed him to smoke it regularly.

The claims about drug use were accompanied by further allegations – also dismissed as false by Mr Paddick – that he had been serially promiscuous, picking up strangers on beaches and in a gay sauna.

Supporters claimed yesterday that Mr Paddick, who is Britain's most senior openly gay police officer, was the victim of a "homophobic witch hunt" aimed at ousting him from his £93,000-a-year post.

Senior members of the Metropolitan Police Authority, the governing body for policing in London, will meet Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, today to decide whether to launch an inquiry. The authority, an independent body which oversees police appointments, has the power to dismiss senior officers if they are found guilty of misdemeanours by a disciplinary panel.

Mr Paddick, who spoke yesterday to his superiors at Scotland Yard about the claims, said he would not be chased out of his job. "I am still the commander for Lambeth and I have done nothing which would make me change that situation. I will have the chance to put forward my views and I will do that when asked," he said.

"I lived with this man for five years in what I believed was an honest and caring relationship. I am absolutely devastated that he should say the things he has said. They are not true."

The commander, who revealed on Friday that his "softly, softly" approach of cautioning cannabis users had led to a rise in arrests of hard-drug dealers, said he had no knowledge of where Mr Renolleau, 36, had kept his drugs.

Mr Paddick said: "I have never smoked cannabis. I don't know where he put his cannabis and on the occasions when he smoked it in my presence I would argue with him about it – it was not something I casually accepted."

His relationship with the Frenchman, who worked as a cashier at Westminster Abbey in London, ended acrimoniously two years ago. A friend of the police officer said: "These are wild allegations which are not founded in reality. They are the product of an attempt to damage Brian."

Scotland Yard said it would not comment on the allegations pending the meeting between Sir John and the police authority chairman, Lord Harris of Haringey, a Labour peer.

A spokesman for the authority said: "We are assessing the information in the newspaper story as well as any other material that comes to light. This matter will be the subject of further discussion with the commissioner."

The publication of the claims by The Mail on Sunday, which is believed to have paid Mr Renolleau £100,000 for his story, completed a torrid week for Mr Paddick. On Monday, he was given a dressing down during a meeting with Sir John for freely expressing his views on anarchy and recreational drug use on a radical website.

His remarks on the internet chatroom that he found the concept of anarchy "attractive" and that society should "screw the dealers" earned him the tabloid sobriquet "Commander Crackpot".

But supporters of Mr Paddick said his work in Lambeth had earned the respect of a community in a part of London where the police had long been mistrusted. Lee Jasper, chairman of the Lambeth Community Police Consultative Group, said: "It is extremely important that a first-class officer is not destroyed by some homophobic tendency in our society. These allegations are part of a homophobic witch hunt."