By Anthony France
A Metropolitan Police officer who retweeted a grossly offensive meme comparing black Hollywood actress Halle Bailey to a slave would have received a final warning had he not resigned.
PC Jonah Dusauzay also body-shamekd singer Jorja Smith and likened drag queens reading stories to children in schools to paedophiles, a gross misconduct hearing heard.
His posts on Twitter, now X, were reported to bosses by colleagues on the same response team.
Dusauzay re-posted an image of Bailey鈥檚 The Little Mermaid character Ariel riding in a horse-drawn carriage with Prince Eric, played by white actor Jonah Hauer-King,
Comparing the actors in Disney鈥檚 live-action remake to all-white ones in the 1989 original, it was captioned 鈥淪he look like he just bought her from the auction鈥.
Dusauzay, 28, claims he did not notice or endorse views of another Twitter user who added the comment 鈥淲hat a downgrade鈥 to the tweet.
Grammy-nominated songwriter Smith, 28, spoke about being trolled on social media because of her weight gain after Little Things became a UK top 20 hit in 2023.
Using his anonymous account, Dusauzay suggested the star 鈥渋s still fine鈥, adding: 鈥淚 go through phases of being a fat bastard too.
鈥淣othing a couple months in the gym won鈥檛 fix.鈥
Jumping into the national debate in 2020 about Drag Queen Story Hour performances in primary schools, the officer wrote: 鈥淎 grown man has no business doing drag shows for kids. Nonce behaviour.鈥
Dusauzay added: 鈥淲hat kid wants to watch that? When I was a kid I wanted to see Barney [the American cartoon character] or Spider-Man, not that.鈥
He also posted a comment about 鈥渞etards鈥 while off-duty, retweeted one with the highly offensive N-word and another saying 鈥淕ermany is gay鈥 in response a clip of the country鈥檚 Eurovision Song Contest entrant with a rainbow Pride flag.
Politics graduate Dusauzay, who is of mixed St Lucian heritage, denied being racist.
But admitted the reposts – including one about Bailey – 鈥渃ould be seen as offensive鈥.
He read out a prepared statement expressing his sorrow and remorse.
However, Commander Katie Lilburn, chairing the disciplinary panel, said these were 鈥渋n fact bogus attempts to try to explain away conduct that he always knew to be improper鈥.
His one about Bailey would have been viewed as upsetting and derogatory to most Londoners, especially black people.
She said right-minded members of the public could equate his remarks about drag artists with false suggestions they were involved in paedophilic behaviour.
Such 鈥渙ffensive and inflammatory鈥 behaviour, she said, 鈥渃reated a risk of disorder or acts of violence鈥 against marginalised people.
Commander Lilburn added: 鈥淗is conduct in reposting these images, without any commentary or attempt to call out their content, merely served to enlarge their publication.鈥
Dusauzay鈥檚 acts had been 鈥渁ll the more reprehensible when committed by a serving police officer from whom higher standards are and must be expected鈥, she found.
He was found to have breached standards of professional behaviour relating to authority, respect, courtesy, equality, diversity and discreditable conduct to a gross misconduct level.
Dusauzay – who served three years with an unblemished record – resigned on May 22 but would have got a final written warning for five years.