A 49-year-old man has been charged with the murder of one of their officers following the discovery of human remains at a flat in south London, the Metropolitan police have said.
Stefano Brizzi was arrested shortly after the decomposed body of missing PC Gordon Semple, 59, was found in a flat in Southwark, south London on Thursday, a week after he was reported missing.
The gruesome discovery was made after a neighbour alerted Scotland Yard to a “smell of death” coming from the flat.
A joint statement from the victim’s brother Ronnie and partner Gary Meeks described him as “a much loved partner, brother, brother-in-law, uncle and cousin” and added “our world will be a worse place without him”.
Semple, who had been with the Metropolitan police for 30 years, left his home in Greenhithe, Dartford to go to work in Westminster on Friday 1 April, and visited the Shard’s Shangri-La Hotel later that day.
He left at 12.30pm and was last seen on CCTV about two-and-a-half hours later near London Bridge, a short distance from the property where he was found. Thousands of people joined a Facebook group to help search for him.
Semple was born in Scotland and came from Inverness, working for the Bank of Scotland as a young man before joining the police.
Met police commander Alison Newcomb previously said it would “take some time” to establish the cause of death due to the condition of the body.
Brizzi is due to appear via a video link at Bromley magistrates court on Monday.
