Brian Sharkey

Introduction

Brian Sharkey is a former police constable with the Metropolitan Police who featured in the BBC Panorama documentary exposing officer conduct at Charing Cross police station. At an accelerated misconduct hearing that concluded on 13 February 2026, a disciplinary panel found his behaviour amounted to gross misconduct for making inappropriate and unprofessional comments about victims of sexual assault and rape while off duty, and for making discriminatory comments about members of the public. Sharkey — who had already left the force — was the ninth officer from the Charing Cross investigation to have gross misconduct proven against him, and the only one of the nine who was not placed on the police barred list, because he no longer served as an officer. His name heads the Met’s own published list of the Charing Cross officers sanctioned between October 2025 and February 2026.

Background Information

Sharkey served as a constable at Charing Cross police station in central London, the station at the centre of one of the largest misconduct investigations in the Met’s modern history. The allegations surfaced through undercover BBC journalism: a Panorama documentary broadcast in October 2025 showed officers at the station making racist, misogynistic and other discriminatory remarks, prompting the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) — which had previously investigated a similar conduct scandal at the same station in 2021-22 — to decide within days that officers should face accelerated gross misconduct proceedings, the fast-track process used where evidence is incontrovertible. He is a different person from Dr William Sharkey, the teacher banned over a fabricated SAS past, whose separate case is also documented on this site.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Allegations. The claims in this section are findings of a police misconduct panel, decided on the civil standard of proof at an accelerated hearing. Sharkey’s conduct was never admitted in a criminal court, never criminally charged, and never adjudicated in court proceedings. As a former officer he was not placed on the barred list, and no formal public denial from him appears in the record covered here.

The panel found that Sharkey, while off duty, made inappropriate and unprofessional comments about victims of sexual assault and rape, and made discriminatory comments about members of the public. It found he breached the police standards of professional behaviour relating to authority, respect and courtesy; equality and diversity; and discreditable conduct. Because Sharkey was already a former officer at the time of the hearing, the panel decided he would not be placed on the police barred list — the sanction that prevents serving officers from ever rejoining policing. His hearing closed the first wave of Charing Cross cases: between October and November 2025 seven serving Met officers were dismissed and barred, beginning with the trio of PS Joe McIlvenny, PC Martin Borg and PC Philip Neilson dismissed and barred on 23 October 2025, and in January 2026 a former Gloucestershire officer who had transferred from the Met was also dismissed and barred.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The IOPC’s investigation team worked through extensive additional footage provided by the BBC that was never broadcast, plus allegations from a public witness appeal, to identify officers including Sharkey. IOPC Director Amanda Rowe said: “We were all shocked and appalled by some of the conduct we saw from officers in the documentary,” adding that the findings enabled the force to dismiss officers at the earliest opportunity. The Met’s published hearing list records Sharkey’s hearing on 13 February 2026 alongside those of the eight other officers — among them the trio of PS Joe McIlvenny, PC Martin Borg and PC Philip Neilson dismissed and barred on 23 October 2025, whose shared case is documented on this site. The investigation’s criminal threads continued separately: two officers remained under criminal investigation for potentially perverting the course of justice.

Current Status

Sharkey is a former constable with a proven gross misconduct finding who cannot be barred from policing because he no longer serves — the same gap in the barring system that police-reform bodies have repeatedly criticised, since a resignation before a hearing leaves an officer free to work in other roles with vulnerable people. The wider Charing Cross investigation remains live: at the time of the February 2026 announcement, eight investigations were still being progressed, including a further Met PC due an accelerated hearing from April 2026, two PCs under investigation over comments about using force, and a sergeant investigated for alleged inappropriate and sexualised comments about women.

Impact on Their Career/Life

The finding attaches Sharkey’s name permanently to the Charing Cross scandal — the IOPC’s published list of sanctioned officers names him in the same line as the sacked and barred officers, and his case is cited in coverage of how the barring system treats officers who resign before disciplinary hearings conclude. For the Met, his was the case that took the Charing Cross gross-misconduct tally to nine, with the then-total of fifteen reached by September 2026; the station’s culture, exposed by Panorama, has become a national reference point in debates about accountability for discriminatory conduct within policing. Sharkey’s own policing career, in any event, is over.

Sources

• Independent Office for Police Conduct, “Charing Cross investigation update – gross misconduct findings for nine officers, further investigations into officers’ behaviour under way,” 14 February 2026. source