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 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.
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.
