Police Chief Inspector with £2.5m property portfolio owed thousands to ‘crooked developer’ with links to actor-turned-drug dealer ‘Dessie’ Bayliss, misconduct panel hears
- Stephen Rice, of Merseyside Police, allegedly lied about contacting the suspect
- The 24-year veteran of the force bought rental properties worth £2m from him
- Rice denies wrongdoing and is not accused of involvement in criminal offences
A police chief inspector with a £2.5million property portfolio owed thousands of pounds to a developer who was at the centre of a major criminal investigation, a misconduct panel has heard.
Chief Inspector Stephen Rice, of Merseyside Police, is accused of lying about regularly contacting the prime suspect in a probe into potential large-scale property fraud.
The 24-year veteran of the force is accused of failing to disclose the money owed to the suspect, who can only be referred to as ‘Mr A’ for legal reasons and was described as a ‘long-standing associate’ of actor-turned-drug dealer Desmond ‘Dessie’ Bayliss.
Chief Inspector Rice is also alleged to have used the police database to snoop on Bayliss and one of his associates without ‘proper policing purpose’, as well as paying a company to write his dissertation for him so he could pass his Master’s degree.
The police officer is not accused of any involvement in criminal offences and denies wrongdoing.
Chief Inspector Stephen Rice (pictured here in his uniform) is accused of lying about contacting the suspect in a major criminal investigation
The suspect in the case, known as Mr A, is described by Merseyside Police intelligence as a ‘long-standing associate’ of actor-turned-drug dealer Desmond Bayliss (pictured here in his mugshot in 2011)
A police misconduct panel convened at Merseyside Police HQ on Tuesday to determine if he breached professional standards of behaviour on multiple occasions – he faces being sacked and banned from the profession if found guilty of gross misconduct.
The main allegations centre on Chief Insp. Rice’s connections with Mr A, who is being looked into by the Economic Crime Team in a probe called Operation Benadir – an investigation into allegations of large-scale property fraud, the Liverpool Echo reports.
The independent panel, presided over by Legally Qualified Chair (LQC) Callum Cowx, heard that the police officer bought rental properties worth a total of more than £2million from Mr A between 2012 and 2016 after a sit-down between the pair in a Costa Coffee café on Old Hall Street in the city centre.
It is alleged those transactions involved Mr A handing him ‘significant’ interest-free loans to cover the deposits, and Chief Insp. Rice obtaining commercial mortgages to cover the rest of the purchase price.
Barrister James Berry, representing Merseyside Police, outlined allegations against Chief Insp. Rice, mostly relating to his years-long business relationship with Mr A and two other men: a financial advisor referred to as ‘Mr B’ and a solicitor referred to as ‘Mr C’ who also worked on the property deals.
The panel heard:
- Chief Insp. Rice was allegedly in regular contact with Mr A almost three years after learning he was a suspect in Operation Benadir, and even asked him for a £10,000 loan to cover legal costs during that time.
- Chief Insp. Rice allegedly used the force intelligence database to snoop on Desmond Bayliss and a man called Jordan O’Rourke, the then boyfriend of Mr Bayliss’s daughter, without any ‘proper policing purpose’.
- Chief Insp. Rice was told by a woman, referred to as ‘Ms D’, that the solicitor used in some of the property deals, Mr C, ‘was running with the Ungis now’, a reference to a ‘prominent organised crime group’, but allegedly lied to investigators about who she was referring to.
- After a leak from one of Chief Insp. Rice’s rental flats caused damage to a shop below, he discussed the issue with a man connected to the shop called Craig Wright, despite allegedly knowing Mr Wright was in prison and speaking on an illicit mobile phone.
- In an unrelated accusation, in 2015 Chief Insp. Rice allegedly paid £3,300 to a company called UK Essays to write a dissertation in his name so he could pass a Master’s degree in Police Leadership at Liverpool Hope University.
The veteran police officer is alleged to have first been introduced to Mr A by his own cousin, with a meeting being arranged between him, Mr A and Mr B in a Costa Coffee in 2012.
Mr Berry told the panel that off the back of that meeting, Chief Insp. Rice agreed to buy the Roklis Building, a large commercial property comprising flats and retail units in Liscard Road, Wallasey, for £570,000.
The barrister claimed Chief Insp. Rice agreed to buy two further properties soon after, both on Alpass Road in Aigburth.
Mr Berry said: ‘On each occasion the agreement was Chief Insp. Rice would obtain mortgages from Lloyds Bank. At the time the maximum for commercial mortgages was 70 per cent of the value of the property.
‘The 30 per cent deposit would be loaned to Chief Insp. Rice by Mr A, as he did not have the funds to cover the deposit. Mr A would himself pay the stamp duty and the legal fees.
‘These were very significant loans from Mr A to Chief Insp. Rice. They were interest free, with no repayment schedule or terms, and they were unsecured. In fact they were not supported by any documentation, there is no signed loan agreement for instance.’
Chief Insp. Rice bought the Roklis Building (pictured) off the back of a meeting with Mr A in 2012
A misconduct hearing at Merseyside Police HQ in Liverpool (pictured) heard Chief Insp. Rice is accused of multiple breaches of professional standards
It is claimed that on February 16, 2016, the officer completed the purchase of an annexe in Portland House on Linnet Lane, Aigburth from Mr A, using the same arrangement.
Mr Berry told the panel that on the very same day the purchase was completed, Chief Insp. Rice used the NICHE intelligence database to do a search on Mr Bayliss, who had been released from prison on licence two years earlier after serving half of an eight-year term for drugs supply offences.
Mr Berry said: ‘His purpose was, we say, to see who he was getting himself involved with.’
The panel heard Chief Insp. Rice himself became concerned that all was not right with the Linnet Lane deal in March 2017, when a woman contacted him claiming she represented a Saudi Arabian investor who had purchased all of that property, and he was involved in fraud.
However it is alleged he reported none of that to Merseyside Police and continued to do business with Mr A.
The hearing was told that in December 2017, the officer was contacted by the Economic Crime Team and a meeting was arranged in which he was informed he may have been the victim of a fraud.
Mr Berry said the force’s case is that during this meeting he was told that Mr A, Mr B and Mr C were all suspects in the fraud enquiry, but the panel heard Chief Insp. Rice denies he found out during that meeting.
The fraud investigation continued for two more years, during which time Chief Insp. Rice had allegedly continued to maintain regular contact with Mr A.
The heat was turned up in March, 2019, when Chief Insp. Rice was served with a notice of investigation. He was interviewed under criminal caution on March 28 that year, when he told detectives he was aware Mr A was under criminal investigation and said he was no longer in contact with him.
However according to Merseyside Police, the senior officer had been in ‘regular telephone contact’ with Mr A from December 2017, including several times in March 2019 – even on the same day as he was being interviewed.
Chief Inspector Rice then filed a notifiable persons report in December 2019, in which he claimed he had purchased ‘a property’ from Mr A in 2016, using Mr B for financial advice and Mr C for legal services during the transaction.
Merseyside Police allege that Chief Insp. Rice was in contact with Mr A for three years while he was under investigation. Pictured: Merseyside Police HQ in Liverpool
In the report he claimed he had become aware ‘in the past 18 months’ that the men were under investigation and had ceased all contact with them, while claiming he was ‘not indebted to any of the males’.
The report also referenced an attack on Mr A in August, 2019, in which he was stabbed.
In the report, Chief Insp. Rice claimed he had noticed a memo about the attack on a ‘Threat, Harm, Risk’ document and immediately closed it, before informing Professional Standards Department officers.
Merseyside Police, however, alleged that the officer was in fact in contact with Mr A throughout 2019, and even into February 2020. According to the force, Chief Insp. Rice later ‘accepted he had lied’ under caution.
Mr Berry told the panel that by December 2019, Chief Insp. Rice had been told he was no longer a criminal suspect, but was given a performance improvement plan which ordered him to fully disclose all the properties he owned and any money owed on them.
The officer submitted a spreadsheet containing eight properties worth a total of £2.5million. However the force later discovered he had failed to declare two other properties, one on Goodacre Road and the second on Butterwick Drive, and had misstated the true purchase price of the Linnet Lane property.
According to misconduct charges, Chief Insp. Rice also ‘failed to disclose that you owed significant sums of money to Mr A, not secured by way of mortgage, which he had loaned to you in connection with the purchase of properties.’
The misconduct hearing is due to continue for four days, and Chief Insp. Rice is expected to give evidence today.