The Met Police inspector sacked for keeping naked pictures of junior colleague on work phone

Published: 19:04, 7 June 2026 | Updated: 19:04, 7 June 2026 A senior Metropolitan Police inspector was fired after keeping naked pictures of a junior colleague on his work phone. Detective Inspector Ben Coogan, 49, was sacked for gross misconduct following a hearing after he was found to have saved five sexual pictures of a female colleague who he was romantically involved with. He has also been barred from joining the force in the future. The pictures, which showed the woman posed naked and sexually, were found following a routine audit of his Metropolitan Police Service-issued mobile device. The police officer of 26 years, who led domestic abuse investigations across three London boroughs, used two separate phones to take the pictures between May and July 2025. He claimed he was merely using his work phones to 'record' the pictures and 'review' them before deletion. In a statement, he said: 'I recorded the images on my work phone, intending just to review them and then delete.' He also claimed he was unable to remove the first four images on his first phone because he had lost it. DI Ben Coogan, 49, was sacked for gross misconduct following a hearing in April after he was found to have saved five sexual pictures of a female colleague Mr Coogan, who describes himself as a 'mission-orientated professional motivated by a core commitment to protecting vulnerable populations', denied showing the images to anybody else. They were taken consensually and of a serving police officer of a lower rank, although she was not reporting to or managed by him. But the hearing's Chair, Commander Andy Brittain, said the images undermine public confidence in the police. He said it was unacceptable for an officer to be using police-issued devices to capture and review sexual images of a colleague. He also claimed there was harm for the sender of the images who may have been unaware her explicit pictures were being saved on police storage devices, where she did not send them. There was also the risk of accidentally sending the pictures onwards to members of the public from police mobiles, he added. Commander Brittain said the images may not have amounted to gross misconduct if they were kept on his personal device. The Metropolitan Police declined to comment. No comments have so far been submitted. Why not be the first to send us your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.