Ben Coogan Senior Investigations, Safeguarding & Risk Leader | Former Detective Inspector | Domestic Abuse, Vulnerability, Complex Investigations & Multi-Agency Governance https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-coogan22/ Credit: Linkedin
A COP has been sacked for keeping naked pictures of a junior female colleague on his work phone.
Detective Inspector Ben Coogan, 49, was found to have breached professional standards and fired for gross misconduct.
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A hearing found DI Coogan had saved five sexually explicit snaps of the woman saved to his phones.
The misconduct hearing heard how the woman had consensually taken and sent the naked pictures to DI Coogan while they were romantically involved.
She is a serving police officer of a lower rank than the inspector, but did not report to him.
They were discovered on his Metropolitan Police Service-issued phone during a routine audit.
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The images were all saved between May and July 2025 on two different devices.
After the first four were saved, the cop lost his first phone, and saved a final fifth photo on the replacement.
He explained in a November statement under caution: “I recorded the images on my work phone, intending just to review them and then delete.”
DI Coogan denied showing the photos to anyone else.
He had served in the Metropolitan Police for more than 26 years, according to his LinkedIn profile.
The disgraced officer described himself as “strategic lead for domestic abuse investigations across three London Boroughs”.
He has been immediately dismissed from the role in which he was responsible for 12 detective sergeants and 60 detective constables.
The decision of the accelerated misconduct hearing in April read: “The Chair’s view was that it is entirely inappropriate and outside of police policies to use a police device in this way.
“It amounted to the use of two work devices to capture sexualised images for ‘review’.”
It found that there was potential harm caused by “mixing personal sexualised material with legitimate policing material on a device used to communicate with members of the public (including victims of crime) and receive and communicate about police work”.
While the photos were shared consensually, the hearing found it amounted to gross misconduct to have transfer the images from a personal device to a work one.
This was because: “Even if she consenually sent sexual images of herself DI Coogan’s personal device, it was unclear whether she had further agreed to their capture and storage on separate devices.”
The hearing chair, Commander Andy Brittain, judged that the behaviour was serious because “this conduct was deliberate and repeated”.
He also determined the reputational harm to the police was high as “it undermines public confidence in the police”.
DI Coogan was dismissed without notice and barred from ever rejoining the force in a decision published on 26 May.
Before the hearing, DI Coogan had accepted the conduct and specified breaches, but did not accept gross misconduct.
The final decision read: “It was determined that DI Coogan’s conduct hadfallen below the standards expected of a serving police officer such as to contravene the Standards of Professional Behaviour and to amount to gross misconduct.
“It was determined that the only viable outcome in DI Coogan’s case is dismissal without notice and entry on the barring list.”
The Jattvibe has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment.
