Gary Waite

Introduction

Gary Waite is a former Detective Sergeant with the Metropolitan Police Service whom a misconduct panel found falsified duty records for a colleague on at least nine occasions — creating “phantom shifts” showing the man on duty while he was absent, sometimes abroad — and separately asked that colleague to supply him with Viagra. The panel found proven breaches of the standards of honesty and integrity, discreditable conduct and duties and responsibilities, concluded the conduct amounted to gross misconduct, ruled that Waite would have been dismissed without notice had he still been serving, and ordered his placement on the College of Policing’s barred list.

Background Information

Waite served as a detective sergeant in the Metropolitan Police, in a supervisory role over the colleague at the centre of the case. Between June 2022 and July 2023 he used the force’s CARMS duty system on no fewer than nine occasions to record the colleague as working when he was not; on some occasions the colleague was out of the country, including in Pakistan. Because the false records made it appear the man was on shift, the colleague was paid for days he had not worked, causing financial loss to the Metropolitan Police, and supervisors were left with an inaccurate picture of which officers were available for deployment.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Misconduct findings, not criminal convictions. The findings below come from a Metropolitan Police misconduct panel, which found the allegations proven on the balance of probabilities. They are regulatory adjudications rather than court judgments, and the sources report no criminal proceedings arising from the phantom shifts or the messages.

Messages showed that Waite asked the colleague for Viagra on 10 December 2022 and again on 4 January 2023. During one exchange the colleague said he would bring four pills into work; Waite replied “That’s the spirit. Need it xx” and later wrote “Great stuff. You the man x”. The panel found it more likely than not that Waite received the Viagra. It also found the relationship inappropriate because Waite supervised the colleague, describing their messages as overfamiliar and sometimes crude; when the colleague requested annual leave, Waite replied “Whatever you need brother xx”. Taken with the nine falsified CARMS entries, the panel found proven breaches of honesty and integrity, discreditable conduct and duties and responsibilities, all amounting to gross misconduct.

Public Reaction and Consequences

The panel ruled that Waite, who had already left the Metropolitan Police by the time of the hearing, would have been dismissed without notice had he still been serving, and ordered that he be placed on the College of Policing’s barred list. The finding that a supervising detective sergeant ran a year-long phantom-shift arrangement that cost the force money — while exchanging requests for prescription erectile-dysfunction medication with the subordinate who benefited — placed the case among the Met’s run of gross-misconduct outcomes published in 2026 dealing with honesty and abuse of supervisory rank.

Current Status

Waite is a former police officer who is barred from working in policing. The gross-misconduct findings are on the public record through the published panel outcome. The phantom-shift scheme’s financial loss to the Met and the false deployment picture it gave supervisors were cited by the panel in support of the honesty-and-integrity breach. The sources report no public response from Waite and no appeal against the outcome.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Waite’s case illustrates how duty-recording systems built to track officer availability became the evidence that ended his career: nine CARMS entries, cross-checked against a colleague’s overseas travel, established a year-long pattern that no explanation at hearing displaced. The Viagra messages, crude and overfamiliar in the panel’s finding, converted a falsification case into one about the corruption of a supervisory relationship. A barred listing now follows him into any future employment connected with policing or other listed roles.

Sources

• Misconduct999, “Met Detective Who Created ‘Phantom Shifts’ For Colleague Asked Him To Supply Viagra Before Saying: ‘Whatever You Need Brother Xx’,” August 2026 — source