A Metropolitan Police officer has been dismissed after operating a coffee shop business while suspended from duty on full pay. Police constable Stanley Kennett, 31, applied for permission to run a business called The Coffee Cycle on 23 April 2024, but the request was denied a week later, according to a tribunal ruling.
A compliance check in September last year revealed that PC Kennett had continued to operate the unauthorised business from a bike shop in Storrington, West Sussex, serving coffee, cakes and pastries. He was listed as director of the Coffee Cycle Catering Company Ltd on Companies House from 1 April 2024.
At a hearing on 12 February, PC Kennett was found to have breached police standards of professional behaviour amounting to gross misconduct. The chair, Commander Andy Brittain, stated that Kennett “flatly contravened an order and instruction in full knowledge that it might be deemed to bring the MPS into disrepute.”
Commander Brittain described the business as a “full-blown and expanding” operation, noting that Kennett actively promoted it on social media. “Running a business, whether for financial gain or not, whilst suspended on full pay brings policing and the MPS in particular into disrepute,” he said. PC Kennett was dismissed without notice and placed on the College of Policing’s barred list.
