An east London volunteer police officer has been sacked and handed a two-year suspended sentence after claiming more than £29,000 in fraudulent expenses.

At a disciplinary hearing on September 16, former Met Police special constable Ashan Malik, 31, of Avon Road, was dismissed for gross misconduct.

It heard he had claimed £29,501 between August 2019 and July 2020 while working in a volunteer police unit covering the east BCU area of Redbridge, Barking and Dagenham and Havering.

A professional reference from the former special constable’s current employer describes him as a “responsible employee”, the misconduct hearing also heard.

Temporary Assistant Commissioner Amanda Pearson dismissed Malik without notice, saying his actions were “deliberate and blatant acts of fraud”.

She added: “In behaving as he did, Special Constable Malik defrauded the Metropolitan Police out of a significant amount of money - money that the police holds on behalf of the public.”

The temporary assistant commissioner said Malik managed to avoid the attention of senior officers by only submitting claims below the £50 threshold that would require their approval.

But a criminal investigation was triggered in July 2020 after he made “substantial claims” amounting to more than £6,000 for both June and July.

Despite being convicted by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court, Malik has not shown remorse and continues to claim he is “innocent and wrongly convicted”, she said.

In written representations to the disciplinary hearing, he claimed a colleague “used his computer” to submit the expenses, which were then paid into his personal bank account.

Ass Commissioner Pearson called his denial “unconvincing and unsupported by any evidence”.

She found it “proven” that he had breached the Met’s standards of professional behaviour in respect of honesty and integrity and discreditable conduct in a way that amounts to gross misconduct.

Malik did not attend the hearing at the Empress State Building, Earl’s Court, telling his Metropolitan Police Federation representative Lisa Hayden that his son had a “hospital appointment” at the same time.

She said he had not shown her proof of the appointment and stopped answering her calls in the days before the hearing.

Malik had been convicted for fraud and money laundering at Woolwich Crown Court in May, and was then handed a two-year suspended sentence in July, alongside a three-month home curfew between 9.30pm and 5am.

He was also ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and to pay £2,600 in court costs with a £149 victim surcharge.