Frank Partridge was on a bender in Soho and heading for Cirque Le Soir, a circus-themed “hot spot” for celebrities and suits.
VIP tables at the nightclub off Carnaby Street require a minimum four figure spend - easily done when a bottle of Belvedere vodka costs £600 and Cristal champagne double that.
If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it, they say. But on nights like these, Partridge’s hand rarely reached into his pocket.
Club owners and security company bosses were only too happy to lavish freebies on a man who revelled in being known as ‘the Sheriff of Soho.’
The doorman at Cirque Le Soir lifted the red rope so Partridge could by-pass the queue of common people wondering ‘who the fuck is that?’.
A manager was under orders to show him to a table where pony-tailed owner, Ryan Bishti, was entertaining a bevvy of girls.
On nights like these, Partridge was unlikely to make it home for breakfast with the wife and kids. His industry friends were expected to take care of him and he would take care of them.
As the booze flowed inside Cirque, ‘Fun time Frankie’ threw some shapes with one of the exotic, scantily-dressed performers.
She placed her python around his neck as he dad danced to hip hop anthem Sound of Da Police, rapper KRS One’s lyrical assault on corrupt cops.
The irony may have been lost on the Metropolitan police sergeant, but not on a member of staff filming the spectacle on their phone.
Not that Partridge cared. Soon he was smooching a dominatrix dressed as Catwoman and retrieving what looked like his police warrant card from her ample cleavage.
The ‘Partridge in a Pair …’ scene was being separately filmed, probably by Bishti and a bar owner friend of the Sheriff.
Partridge declined Catwoman’s bid to bend him over for some light punishment, but happily stood firm as she slinked around his crotch - until the booze took hold and the cop fell backwards through a fire exit.
Frank Partridge didn’t know it, but he had fallen a lot further. The Met’s anti-corruption squad was on him.
The secret operation, codenamed Joseph, had began eight months earlier in June 2013 with a complaint from a restauranteur.