Gay former police officer heads for the jungle

Thursday, 13th November 2008

Written by Francesca Cookney

Former senior police officer Brian Paddick is set to join ex-boyband members and WAGs in ITV's latest series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!

Until his retirement in 2007, Paddick was the UK's most senior gay police office, having served as Deputy Assistant Commissioner for the London Metropolitan Police. He subsequently ran for London Mayor as the Liberal Democrat candidate, coming in third to Boris Johnson and Labour's Ken Livingstone.

Now he's off to join Ant and Dec in the Australian outback along with 71-year old Star Trek actor George Takei and former tennis champion, Martina Navratilova. Paddick has an interesting history, having been a sergeant on the front line during the Brixton riots of 1981 as well as a key player in the Met's controversial drugs initiative in 2001. He also spent five years married to a woman in what he described as "a genuine attempt to live as a straight man."

At that time he found it much harder to reconcile his upbringing and career with his sexuality. "It's what my faith as a Christian expected of me," he said of his marriage. "It's what my parents expected of me. It's what the police service expected of me."

But there are happier times ahead for Paddick who announced in September that he and his long-term partner, Norwegian civil engineer Petter Belsvik, are hoping to tie the knot in the New Year.

Catch him in the new series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! which starts on Sunday at 9pm on ITV1.

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