7/7 officer 'plotted to defraud Met over rent'

A POLICE officer investigating the July 7 bombers was involved in a conspiracy to defraud the Metropolitan Police over the cost of flat rentals in Yorkshire, a court was told yesterday.

The Met was “swindled” out of the difference between what it was charged for some apartments in Leeds and the actual cost to the tune of 90,000, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Det Con Daren Pooley, 41, his wife Nicola, 38, and her sister Michelle Butler, 49, all deny conspiracy to defraud between April 1, 2006 and September 30, 2007.

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Prosecutor Peter Watson QC said a number of officers, including Pooley, went on long-term deployment to West Yorkshire after the bombings. It was too expensive for them to stay in hotels for long so they went into apartments, divided into two teams.

One team stayed in serviced two-bed apartments in Leeds which cost just over 2,000 a month each, while the other, including Pooley, were in one-bedroom apartments which were not fully serviced yet cost about the same.

Mr Watson said: “The real cost of the apartments in the second set of accommodation was in fact substantially less than the other, and the Metropolitan Police Service was being swindled out of the difference.”

He said Pooley met his future wife Nicola while staying in a hotel. She is the sister of Butler, whose husband Stephen is not in the dock, but the prosecution claims was a key player in the plan. He ran a company for which his wife worked and was involved in discussions about finding accommodation for the second team of officers.

The trial continues.