A Metropolitan Police officer has resigned in disgrace before he could be sacked for groping the breasts of a woman at London’s Heaven nightclub.
PC Sijanta Thapa, 31, was caught on camera pulling the woman onto his lap and grabbing her with his hands during a night out at the famous club.
The officer faced a criminal sexual assault charge, but the case against him was abandoned at the start of a planned trial.
But he still faced Met disciplinary proceedings, and resigned at the start of July ahead of the formal hearing.
A panel has now concluded Thapa did grab the woman’s breasts, and then lied about the incident in a bid to cover up his actions.
The incident happened on January 16 last year, when the woman - a tourist - was with friends at the club in Villiers Street near Charing Cross.
She danced with Thapa and briefly kissed him, the misconduct hearing was told, before he led her to a bench, pulled her on to his lap, and placed his hands on her breasts.
CCTV captured the moment she was groped, before pulling away from Thapa and rushing to find her friends.
“This has left me feeling terrible”, she later told police. “An unknown male grabbed my boobs when I didn’t want him to”.
She said she was “fine” with a dance and a “quick kiss”, but the man then “started walking me over to a bench and made me sit down on his lap.
“When I was sat on his lap I was facing away from him he has then started grabbing both of my boobs.
“I immediately felt scared and pushed his hands off me and I said no.
“I got up straight away and walked back over to my friends at the bar.”
She was crying, obviously distressed, and repeatedly said “please help me”, one of her friends revealed.
Heaven security got involved and detained Thapa, who was insisting that the incident had been consensual.
In his police interview, Thapa suggested he had “implied consent” to touch the woman, and claimed she had been “grinding” against his lap.
But the misconduct panel concluded he had been lying.
“The CCTV does not show (her) behaving in the manner described by Former PC Thapa, or in the opinion of the Panel, in a manner which suggests that she was giving consent to intimate sexual contact.”
They added: “In the opinion of the panel, it is highly likely that Former PC Thapa made up this false account after he had been shown the CCTV during his police interview in an attempt to explain his behaviour.
“In the opinion of the Panel, (his) attempt to fabricate a story that is completely undermined by the CCTV tends to suggest that it is more likely than not Former PC Thapa knew that he did not have consent to touch her breasts.”
The officer, formerly part of the Met’s Central West command unit covering Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Kensington and Chelsea, would have been sacked if he had not already resigned, and will now be added to a police barring list.
Heaven, a popular LGBTQ+ venue which has operated in Charing Cross for more than 40 years - was forced to close temporarily last year after the Met raised public safety concerns with Westminster City Council.
The closure came after a security guard was accused of raping a woman near to the venue. He was cleared of the charge following a trial.
