When Stephen Watson was installed as chief constable of Greater Manchester Police in 2021, he vowed to turn around what was a failing police force. Part of his mission was to 'root out and boot out' corrupt police officers.
Since then, more than 100 cops have been sacked and, with new rules introduced in May allowing bosses to speed up the disciplinary process, many more are set to follow.
From drug dealing to horrific sex crimes, corrupt police have used their position of trust and power to commit crimes rather than solve them. Below are some of the worst examples of police corruption to blight Greater Manchester Police over the last three years.
READ MORE: Wicked GMP officer switched off bodycam on 999 call then subjected girl to depraved sexual assault
The depraved monster
PC Dean Dempster, 35, was a respected 'response officer' in Oldham, answering 999 calls across the town. Unbeknown to his colleagues, he was a depraved monster with a sexual interest in children.
Earlier this month Dempster, from West Didsbury in south Manchester, was jailed for sexually assaulting a girl under the age of ten when he was called out to a home in Oldham last year.
He switched off his police body-camera, pulled her pyjama bottoms down and sexually touched the vulnerable girl out of sight of fellow police officers after he had taken the youngster into a bedroom to talk to her.
Jailing Dempster, Judge Stuart Driver KC handed him an extended sentence 'for the public protection' of 14 years. It includes a 'custodial' element of nine years which allows him to apply for release to the Parole Board after six years.
Dempster admitted sexual assault on a child under 13, two counts of misconduct in a public office and six counts of making indecent images of children. He was also made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and must sign the sex offenders' register for life.
The police investigation into Dempster is continuing. Chief Constable Watson branded him 'morally reprehensible' when he sacked him in May.
The cocaine addict stuffing drugs into his pocket
Detective Constable Andrew 'Tolly' Talbot, from Leigh, was a crime-fighting veteran with a reputation for locking up drug dealers. He'd spent three distinguished years in the army and then 18 years at GMP, first on the Salford division and then joining the serious organised crime department, helping to lock up some of Greater Manchester's biggest villains.
What none of his colleagues knew was that he was a cocaine addict and no better than any of the dealers he had locked up.
Right under the noses of unsuspecting colleagues, he was ripping open bags of seized cocaine in the store room inside GMP's offices at Nexus House in Ashton-under-Lyne and stuffing as much of the class A drug into the pockets of his jeans as he could. His trial heard the store, which houses vast amounts of drugs seized from the streets, was 'run on trust' and 'lacking effective supervision' - meaning Talbot just walked into the store room and helped himself to cocaine.
In all, he stole an astonishing four kilos of cocaine between February 2018 and January 2020, ludicrously claiming during his trial that he had snorted the lot. Actually, these drugs ended up back out on the streets so dealers could continue to peddle in misery, thanks to him.
But it's possible that Talbot would - even today - still be plundering that store room for cocaine if it wasn't for an astonishing and reckless lapse when he was dropping his daughter off at her primary school on February 13, 2020. He took a small bag of cocaine with him at drop-off and, before he started for home, was totally unaware it had fallen from his back pocket. During the lunchbreak, shocked staff found the snap bag of cocaine and Talbot's secret life of crime began to unravel.
Jailing him for 19 years, Judge Neil Flewitt KC said: "You deceived your colleagues and you betrayed the trust placed in you by them and the community."
Talbot was nailed thanks to an investigation by GMP's anti-corruption unit - the former cop's conduct was blasted as 'depraved' by GMP.
The officer who had sex with a vulnerable woman on duty
In June Shamraze Arshad, a police officer and father-of-two, was jailed for having sex with a vulnerable woman while on duty. Based at Longsight police station, he met the woman after he and a colleague were called out to her student accommodation in south Manchester when she was suicidal in the autumn of 2020, a court was told.
He submitted a care plan for her after she was taken to hospital and having finished his shift 'that should have been the end of the matter', prosecutor Jamie Baxter said. But later that morning while off duty, 'arrogant' Arshad, from Bolton, used his police mobile to find her personal details and began calling her just hours after she had been taken to hospital.
The 38-year-old repeatedly asked her to go on a date then 'began an intimate and ultimately sexual relationship with this vulnerable young woman whom he met in crisis'.
After a four-day trial at Liverpool Crown Court, he was convicted of misconduct in a public office and was jailed for four years. Following his sentencing, bosses at GMP described him as a 'disgrace to the police service'.
The paedophile caught with indecent images
Mark Rosebury, an officer with GMP, was jailed in June after being caught possessing hundreds of indecent images of children. Rosebury, 38, was found with the sick images after devices were seized from his home and searched.
It followed an investigation into possession and distribution of indecent images of children by Lancashire Police's online child abuse investigation team. Rosebury, of Earnshaw Road, Bacup, was arrested at his home in May last year.
He pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children, one count of possessing extreme images, and one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child. He was jailed for 18 months.
The 'dangerous' offender who treated girl as his 'puppet'
Detective Constable Stephen Hardy was jailed for 26 years in 2023. Based on the Stockport division, he was was found guilty of a catalogue of sexual crimes against his victim.
Hardy groomed the girl and 'gained power and control' over her, a court heard. Hardy, of Hyde Road in Mottram, Tameside, was convicted of multiple counts of rape; sexual assault; causing a child to engage in sexual activity and to watch sexual activity; and assault by penetration.
His trial heard the offences spanned several years and began when his victim was under 16. She was worried nobody would believe her if she told anyone - because of Hardy's job, the court heard. Judge Robert Trevor-Jones labelled Hardy a ‘dangerous’ offender and handed him an extended sentence.
He had subjected the girl to a 'highly calculated and cynical course of grooming behaviour', the judge said. Judge Trevor-Jones labelled Hardy as 'manipulative' and 'devious', and said the victim felt he was an 'intimidating character' and was concerned that she would not be believed due to his profession.
"You were also a police officer, she felt there was no real evidence that you behaved in this way beyond her say so," the judge said. He said Hardy had treated the girl as a 'sex object' and his 'puppet', and said there had been a 'sinister streak' to his behaviour, which was committed off-duty.
The officer who used a cadet training scheme as a 'grooming playground'
PC Adnan 'Adz' Ali was jailed in 2023 for using a cadet training scheme as his own 'grooming playground'.
Ali was sentenced to five years in jail - reduced to three years on appeal - for misconduct in a public office and five sexual assaults on a 16-year-old boy and two young girls. The assaults and misconduct took place between 2015 and 2018 with the young men and women on GMP’s Volunteer Police Cadet Scheme.
A trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard that the 36-year-old father, from Old Trafford, used the training scheme as a 'grooming playground' and 'exploited the freedom he was given.' The sexual assaults involved touching a girl cadet inappropriately while giving her a lift home and kissing another in his room while they were away at a camp. The boy had his shoulders rubbed by Ali before his genitals were touched over his clothing while they were together in an apprenticeship office.
Ali, of Leighton Road, also sent hundreds of inappropriate messages each day to young people in his care as well as 'highly inappropriate' photographs, before encouraging them to be sent in return. One text message included: "Just lay in bed... wish u were here xx" and another said: "Wish you were in the bath with me."
Ali was arrested in October 2018 after the force received a complaint that he had been 'behaving inappropriately' towards a 16-year-old boy. His devices were seized and analysed and officers found thousands of messages and identified more victims.
Ali became police leader of Trafford cadets in 2013 after suffering post traumatic stress disorder after a serious knife injury while on duty. He was based in Stretford and the cadet unit rapidly grew to about 130 cadets, the largest group in Greater Manchester. While he was head of the unit they won local and national awards which enhanced his reputation.
The cop who formed a secret relationship with an alleged rape victim
GMP officer Simon Rose was jailed in 2022 after he formed a secret sexual relationship with an alleged rape victim and tried to thwart a raid on her home. A judge told Rose that he had let down his colleagues and the general public as he ordered him to serve three years.
Judge Swinnerton told Rose, an officer with Greater Manchester Police since 2007, that victims of sexual abuse feel under great pressure about reporting matters to the authorities. “It is wholly unacceptable if one of those factors might be them subsequently being targeted by a predatory police officer.”
Rose, 48, was convicted of misconduct in public office and attempting to pervert the course of justice after a nine-day trial.
The cop who tried to swerve a traffic offence
A disgraced police officer who served time for lying to swerve a traffic offence failed in a shameless bid to keep his job earlier this year. Raja Yousaf, 28, claimed the traffic cop who stopped him suggested he was a terrorist 'based on the fact I'm a Muslim'.
But Chief Constable Stephen Watson dismissed his claim and sacked Yousaf, a PC who had been accepted onto GMP's firearms unit.
In August last year, Yousaf was jailed for four months after he admitted perverting the course of justice. The lying cop had claimed the registration had been stolen after his BMW had been discovered driving at speed through Oldham at around midnight on July 30, 2021.
But traffic police are said to have recognised PC Yousaf who drove out of sight despite pursuing cops using their emergency 'blues and twos' following the incident on Greenacres Road. GMP says its investigations proved that PC Yousaf’s mobile phone had been in Oldham on the night in question, and not Stockport as he claimed when he was interviewed.
In January Yousaf was sacked by Chief Constable Watson following an 'accelerated misconduct hearing' at GMP's headquarters in Newton Heath.
The hearing was told Yousaf had been stopped earlier that night, and he claimed the traffic cop who stopped him suggested to him he was a terrorist. Yousaf told the hearing the encounter left him fearful about the way he would be when he was stopped for a second time.
Mr Watson dismissed his allegations and sacked the 'disgraced' officer, finding that in fact the would-be gun cop had been 'insolent and evasive' to the traffic officer who he called 'a tool'. He had also refused to provide his identity documents and had not revealed he was a cop.
The officer who pursued a student cop
PC Christopher Armstrong was sacked after pursuing a student cop and then engaging in sexual conduct with her at a police station during a nightshift. Armstrong, who had been with GMP for 13 years, admitted it was wrong but insisted it was 'consensual'.
He was said to have driven to the junior colleague's home and 'groped' her and a month later tried to have sex with her in a shower room after giving the probationer a tour of Middleton police station. In July 2022 he was sacked by Greater Manchester Police following a disciplinary hearing.
The PC with an 'improper relationship'
SalfordPC Paul Banks was sacked after having an 'improper relationship' with a woman he met 'in the course of his policing duties'. He told her to create an email account and then accessed explicit videos and pictures that she had uploaded to it.
He clicked on these more than 200 times and failed to report them to his colleagues. His own colleagues rooted him out and reported him to the force’s Professional Standards Branch. In 2022 he was sacked without notice after a gross misconduct meeting.
The bent cop who tipped off a gang
Mohammed Malik was jailed in 2021 for passing on sensitive and confidential intelligence used by a gang and was 'sacked' by the force. Malik, 37, was jailed for 28 months after he admitted three counts of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.
A court heard Malik, from Rochdale, passed on intelligence he took from Greater Manchester Police's computer system to a third party in exchange for money. The third party, his friend Mohammed Anis, from Bury, helped to provide cars to 'serious and organised crime groups', Liverpool Crown Court was told.
Malik, the court heard, searched GMP's intelligence database to find out if police officers were monitoring cars being used by the criminals - and for information known to police about Anis and his associates.
What the police has to say
A GMP Spokesperson said: “It is vital the people of Greater Manchester can have trust in their police force. The Chief Constable has been clear in how he is doing this through raising standards and ‘rooting out’ and ‘booting out’ officers who fall below this and who undermine public confidence.
"This is why we have tripled the rate in which we’ve dismissed officers who are not fit to represent the police, with more than 100 officers being dismissed on the Chief’s watch since May 2021. Policing is a truly challenging profession where genuine mistakes are made. We continue to fully support the vast majority of GMP’s officers who are honest, professional, and committed to keeping our communities safe."
