Decorated Gang Policeman Arrested When Affair Turned Sour

Court Out: Darin Birmingham 

An award-winning ex-gangbusting cop’s affair with a council ASBO boss ended when he was arrested ‘like a terrorist’ stepping off a transatlantic flight with his wife when accused of harassment, a court heard.

Former Police Sergeant Darin Birmingham, 60, fell in love with 49 year-old Sharon Murphy when the pair teamed-up during a drugs bust on a crack house. 

She was Croydon Council’s Anti-Social Behaviour enforcement manager and an intense decade-long relationship followed until she complained to police about him harassing her with emails and texts.

Father-of-two Birmingham, of Stanier Street, Hailsham, East Sussex was charged with harassing Sharon between August 24 and November 4, last year.

He did not deny sending the messages as he strived to woo her back after she split with him, but Croydon Magistrates Court ruled the affair was so intense they couldn’t amount to harassment.

“There has been a long and fractious cycle of emotions between you for nearly ten years,” magistrate Keith Sillitoe told Birmingham.

“This was a tragic emotional sequence of events for both of you and we feel your communications do not amount to harassment as you pursued the relationship.”

Sharon told the trial the intense affair quickly developed after the drug raid in 2009. “That’s when I met him. It was fantastic, exciting, electric.

“I was in awe of him, he was incredible at his job. I loved being around him, we bounced off each other and our professional relationship became personal.

Sharon Murphy outside Croydon Magistrates' Court 

“He noticed I had no wedding ring and pursued a relationship with me.”

A cinema date to celebrate one-year together turned sour when Birmingham’s wife Karen discovered the affair.

“I got a phone call from his wife after she found the ticket receipts in his pocket and it all kicked off.

“It was horrible, I was scared, I hated being called names by his wife and that night his daughter assaulted him really badly and he was taken to hospital in Eastbourne.”

Throughout the affair Birmingham promised they would be together permanently and they even looked for a house to buy, but he could never make the break from his family.

“I was strung along so he could have the best of both worlds,” Sharon told the trial. “I would be lied to, we’d break up and he’d manipulate me to coax me around.

“That was the cycle. He knows the language to use to keep me dangling by a string, being a master of knowing what string to pull.

“I needed someone to share my life with, to go to sleep with and that was never going to be Darin.

‘I got an email from his wife telling me I should: ‘Go and find some other poor sod to cling onto,’ and that he was never going to leave his family.

“I was getting the same old churned up reasons why he couldn’t leave, like a house needed to be sold, his son was serving in Afghanistan, but I was blind. Everyone else could see he would never leave.

Award-Winning Officer: Birmingham

They would have secret rendezvous in various hotels, but one meet-up left Sharon feeling the end of their relationship was near.

“At the point of being naked in bed with him, about to make love he called me ‘Karen,’ and that as that. All I could see was him on to top me naked, calling me ‘Karen.’

“When I blocked him he turned up at my house and consumed a full carton of painkillers, feigning a suicide attempt in my front garden.”

Birmingham denied overdosing in Sharon’s front garden, but did admit sending her up to 36 emails while holidaying in Florida with his wife.

She told him her was harassing her, but Birmingham, who was commended 23 times as a police officer, told the court: “We had been in the same situation twenty times before.

“This was the same scenario, it was not meant to upset her or be oppressive.”

It was love at first sight for Birmingham at the crack house raid. “It was like being struck be lightening, she’s awesome, the best thing I’d ever seen,” he said.

“The love we had was so strong. She was the one person in life worth fighting for.

“You could not find two happier people. We meshed together, never had a row and everything was great.”

He bought her a £1,200 ring and pet dog and agreed to purchase a £6,000 Tiffany ring once they moved in together.

However, this never happened and Birmingham’s world came crashing down when arrested at Gatwick Airport. “I was arrested in quite an excessive manner.

“The pilot ordered all the male passengers to have their passports ready and there were two Met and four Sussex officers waiting for me.

“When I was gang Sergeant we could never get airside to arrest people smuggling drugs, but for me it was like a Tier One interception, like a terrorist.

“It was to cause me maximum embarrassment, to upset my wife and was totally disrespectful.”

Denying he would ever intentionally harass Sharon he told the court: “What we had was out of this world. I let my wife down as well, it was terrible, terrible, what I’ve done.

“I came back and got arrested. It was pretty obvious Sharon did not want me.”

After retiring from the Met Birmingham began a new career giving financial advice to serving officers, but was sacked when a policeman arrived at his office to serve a non-molestation order Sharon applied for.