A Metropolitan Police officer has been charged with misconduct in public office over the alleged theft of money from a man who died after collapsing, the force said.
PC Craig Carter allegedly stole £170 in cash from Claudio Gaetani, 45, who lay dead on a busy north London street for six hours in full view of children, while officers waited for an undertaker to remove the body.
Gaetani, an Italian filmmaker and actor, had suffered a heart attack during the morning rush hour as he cycled to meet an Italian couple he was staying with in Hornsey. The night prior, he arrived from his native Italy for a theatre festival in the Southbank having exchanged over 200 Euros at the airport.
Anti-corruption detectives this month passed their file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service following a lengthy investigation during which CCTV of an officer counting the money was allegedly recovered.
The Met Police said in a statement: "A serving police officer has been charged with misconduct in public office. PC Craig Carter, who is attached to the North Area Command Unit, was charged via postal charge requisition. He will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 28 June.
The force added: "The charge relates to the alleged theft of money from a man who died following a collapse in September 2022. Following the charge, PC Carter was suspended from duty."
Officers attending the scene of the accident took Gaetani’s passport and wallet, while the distraught couple he was staying with were allowed to keep his bicycle and backpack. When the wife went to collect his belongings from Edmonton police station, she noticed that the money Gaetani had exchanged was missing from his wallet, prompting the Met to launch an investigation.
She told the Mirror: “The money is not the issue. [Claudio] comes from quite a wealthy family. I’m still doing [this complaint] not because of the money but because people who are in uniform they should have a kind of trust. I think it is really disrespectful. I was really, really upset."
Her husband, who went to university with Gaetani, said his best friend was “the type of person when you meet you can fall in love with, absolutely cheerful and positive, even with his physical condition of dwarfism he was never saying no to any adventure. We spent a lot of time travelling.”
The wife said the Met told her body-worn footage showing an officer counting the cash from Gaetani’s wallet had been retrieved and the suspect officer went sick soon after the allegation was made and has not returned to work. The Met said the officer has been on restricted duties since June involving no contact with the public or evidence gathering.
The couple question why it has taken seventeen months since the complaint for a file to be sent to the CPS earlier this month. Documents show the police watchdog initially took three months to decide that the Met should handle the complaint. The case was dealt with at a local level before being passed to a specialist investigations team last summer in the Met’s Line of Duty squad.