A serving Metropolitan Police officer has admitted stealing money from an Italian filmmaker’s corpse as he lay dead on a busy street in London.
PC Craig Carter, of Harlow, Essex, has pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office after stealing around £115 from Claudio Gaetani between September 7 and 14 2022.
Wearing a dark suit, the 51-year-old appeared at Wood Green Crown Court today to plead guilty to the charge, which stated he ‘took for his own use money from a wallet received by him in evidence in relation to a sudden death’.
Carter was charged after the cash was stolen from Mr Gaetani while he was lay dead on a street in Haringey, north London, for six hours while officers waited for an undertaker to remove the body.
Mr Gaetani, 45, was said to have suffered a heart attack during morning rush hour while cycling to meet an Italian couple he was staying with in nearby Hornsey, north London.
Craig Carter, 51, has pleaded guilty at Wood Green Crown Court to misconduct in public office
Claudio Gaetani, 45, an Italian filmmaker, was said to have suffered a heart attack during morning rush hour while cycling to meet an Italian couple he was staying with
He had only arrived from his native Italy the night before for a theatre festival in the Southbank.
At Wood Green Crown Court today, Judge Daniel Fugallo addressed Carter and said: ‘I have to make absolutely clear that an immediate custodial sentence seems the likely outcome in this case.’
The judge granted Carter unconditional bail ahead of his sentencing at the same court on September 13.
PC Carter, who is based with the Met’s North Area Command Unit in the Enfield and Haringey area, has been suspended from duty during proceedings.
The Met launched an investigation after the wife found money missing from Mr Gaetani’s wallet when she collected his belongings from the police, the Mirror reported.
She told the newspaper: ‘I think it is really disrespectful. I was really, really upset.’
Her husband, who attended university with Mr Gaetani, said that he 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.’
Mr Gaetani had only arrived from his native Italy the night before for a theatre festival in the Southbank
Tetteh Turkson, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said Carter fell ‘woefully short’ of the public’s expectations of a police officer.
He added: ‘The fact Carter thought he could freely steal from a victim who had sadly passed away is not only disturbing, but deeply disrespectful to the victim’s family. Our thoughts remain with them at this time.
‘After collaborative work from the CPS and Metropolitan Police Service, Carter was left with no option but to plead guilty and face the consequences of his actions.’
Detective Superintendent Marco Bardetti, from North Area, said the evidence against Carter ‘could not be denied’.
‘In September 2022, PC Carter was responsible for looking after a man who had sadly died in the street, as well as taking responsibility for his personal possessions,’ he added.
‘A family, struggling to come to terms with the death of a loved one, should not be put in a position where they have to make a complaint against an officer, suspecting that they have taken money.
‘The Met is not an organisation that will tolerate such behaviour.’