‘Omar’ has two choices: Stay in Morocco with his well-connected family, or return to the UK and go to prison for corrupting a cop.
Omar does not like porridge. The beefcake security company boss likes running the doors of Soho’s swankiest nightclubs. Doors he won and has defended with guile and fists for twenty years.
But now those doors are being eyed up by competitors, leaving Omar little room to manoeuvre.
The conundrum unfolded last week at Southwark Crown Court in south London where the security boss was due to be sentenced for corrupting Met licensing sergeant Frank Partridge.
Their trial ending in July was the culmination of an eight-year Metropolitan police operation, the largest corruption probe in Soho since the 1980s.
Partridge got seven-and-a-half years for accepting bribes from Omar and another security boss, Terry Neil, who was also convicted.
The bent ex-cop is said to be on the ‘nonce wing’ rather than risk life among the general prison population with their access to sugary hot water, pool balls in socks and homemade shivs.
Omar persuaded the judge to delay his sentencing because of a back operation the 56-year-old security boss said he urgently needed.
But come 24 November, the dock at Court 8 was empty. Omar was in Casablanca and the odds of him coming back were looking as long as the judge’s face.
It isn’t just Omar who’s in the wind. The Upsetter can reveal that a second Met police officer sacked for gross misconduct is also missing and on the run.
Omar is accused of bribing the cop and the cop is suspected of accepting those bribes. But after last week’s events, a trial is looking less and less likely.
While a possibility remains that both men will one day stand in the dock together, this newsletter is prevented from revealing some of the details of the case.
Here’s what can be said.