Three years for corrupt policeman over drug plot

Pc Mark Bohannan, who had 25 years’ experience, passed confidential information to his cocaine-taking wife Denise and her drug dealer in return for free drugs and money over a period of six years.

Judge Nicholas Loraine-Smith told Southwark Crown Court in London that Bohannan’s actions enabled the dealer to boast he had “a corrupt police officer on the end of the line”.

The 47-year-old officer, who worked with the Metropolitan Police Territorial Support Group, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office last month. He has since been dismissed from the force.

Bohannan’s wife Denise, who lives with him in Chapel Road, Bexleyheath, Kent, was jailed for 18 months after also being found guilty of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office.

Referring to Mark Bohannan, the judge said: “It seems to me that he did what he thought his wife wanted him to do. I’ve no doubt he would have preferred his wife not to be a drug addict. But what she wanted she got.”

Bohannan deliberately passed information to drug dealer Syed Imtiaz Ahmed, which allowed him to continue his large-scale drug dealing “undetected and unpunished”.

Speaking of Ahmed, who gave evidence for the prosecution, the judge said the conspiracy “allowed him to boast to those having business with him that he had a corrupt police officer at the police station on the end of the line”.

“It must surely have enhanced his reputation and capacity to earn huge amounts of money,” the judge said.

Bohannan carried out 475 checks on a variety of police intelligence systems between April 12 2001 and May 10 2007.

Speaking after the convictions last month, the reviewing lawyer for the CPS’s special crime division, Gaon Hart, said: “We believe that justice has been served for the public in this case and an extremely dangerous conspiracy has been foiled.”

Bohannan carried out searches of confidential police systems after being “tasked” to do so by the dealer, “deliberately passing information to Syed Ahmed in return for free drugs and for money”, prosecutors said.

Bohannan previously admitted his actions “compromised” police investigations as he passed information to his wife Denise, used her as an informant without telling his colleagues, and failed to report her possession of class A drugs.

David Durose, prosecuting, told the jury the couple, who have been married for 21 years, had a “corrupt” relationship with Ahmed, who was the “coordinator of a drugs organisation responsible for the supply of cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis over a period of many years”.