Detective jailed for corruption loses most of pension

A former detective who conspired to pervert the course of justice in return for £20,000 from one of Europe's biggest drug traffickers has been stripped of most of his pension and ordered to forfeit £200,000 in other early retirement payments.

Elmore Davies, a former detective chief inspector for Merseyside Police, was the most senior policeman to be convicted of corruption for almost three decades when a jury at Nottingham Crown Court decided four years ago that he provided confidential information to a crime syndicate headed by Curtis Warren, a drug dealer said to have amassed a fortune of £180m.

Davies, who was released from prison last April after serving three years of a five-year term, had keenly anticipated his pension after nearly 30 years' service. At his trial it was revealed that he was hoping a back injury would enable him to retire "on a nice pension – £500 a week in my hand just for sitting on my extremely fat arse". He reckoned he could work as a security consultant on cruise liners – "£500 a week and all your keep and ale".

Despite his conviction at a trial in which he was described as "a bent copper stewed in corruption," his lawyers spent four hours pleading with Merseyside Police Authority, at a special meeting, to allow him to draw most of his £25,000 a year pension. But the committee ruled that 75 per cent of it would be permanently forfeited – the maximum penalty permissible in law – and he would only receive the amount he had paid in contributions.

Davies had been due to retire 13 weeks after his arrest. His solicitor, Tony Nelson, said his client was devastated and would appeal.