A crystal meth addict who murdered a police officer before using techniques seen in the US TV series Breaking Bad to dispose of his body has been jailed for life and will serve a minimum of 24 years in prison.

Stefano Brizzi, 50, was found guilty last month of murdering Gordon Semple, 59, in April. A court heard that he lured the officer to his London flat for sex and drugs before strangling him, dismembering his body and dissolving it in acid in a bath, copying the method of corpse disposal used by Walter White, the lead character in the US TV series.

In gruesome details that emerged in court, the prosecution also accused Brizzi of cannibalism after bite marks were found on the dead officer’s rib and it was revealed that the Italian had cooked other parts of his body.

Gordon Semple. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

Brizzi admitted dismembering and disposing of Semple’s body, but claimed the officer, who served in the Metropolitan police for 30 years, died accidentally during a sex game after a dog leash around his neck slipped.

In November, a jury at the Old Bailey convicted the Italian national of murder by a 10 to two majority after more than 30 hours of deliberation.

On Monday, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC sentenced Brizzi to life in prison with a minimum of 24 years. Brizzi was also sentenced to seven years for obstructing a coroner, which will run concurrently.



The judge said there were “terrible features” of the case and that Brizzi’s drug addiction had ruined his life. He added: “Regret you express now for Mr Semple’s death has to be seen against what you did over a number of days to his body.”

The defendant sat in the dock with his head bowed throughout the hearing.

Before the murder, Brizzi had been a £70,000-a-year web developer at Morgan Stanley, but lost his job because of his crystal meth addiction. The court was told he sought help from a users’ support group, whose organiser described how Brizzi had been obsessed with Breaking Bad.



Brizzi later became a social worker. He regularly took part in domination, bondage and sexual asphyxiation. He admitted to an intellectual interest in satanism after officers found a copy of the satanic bible downloaded on his computer and handwritten notes to the devil, although he denied being a satanist.

Semple, who also took part in extreme sexual practices, went to Brizzi’s flat in Southwark, south London, on 1 April after the pair made contact on the gay dating app Grindr. The officer, who was based in the Westminster antisocial behaviour team and was supposed to be on duty, messaged Brizzi to say he was “free now for [a] hot, dirty, sleazy session”.

The court heard that on the day of the murder Brizzi was tired and bad-tempered because he had been engaged in heavy drug use, had not slept and had been let down by someone else on Grindr. He was also dissatisfied with Semple’s appearance, describing him as fat, ugly and unattractive.

Brizzi and Semple had been trying to persuade other gay men in the area to join them for a “chemsex” party, but when one man agreed to join them he was sent away by Brizzi, who told him via intercom: “We’re having a situation here. Someone fell ill but we’re taking care of it. So our party is cancelled,” the court was told.

Pathologists believe he killed the officer after the pair had sex.

Four days later, Brizzi was captured in CCTV footage buying items at the Leyland DIY store in nearby Southwark Street. He bought equipment including pincers, heavy-duty scissors, a putty knife, plastic buckets, carpet cleaner and a perforated metal sheet from a hardware store.

He used them to strip flesh from the corpse of Semple, whose remains were found in the bath and in plastic buckets on the floor. Police officers who found their colleague’s body had been left traumatised, the court heard.

Semple’s partner, Gary Meeks, made more than 20 unanswered calls to his mobile phone on 1 April and reported him missing the next morning. Semple’s body was found on 7 April when officers were called to Brizzi’s flat after neighbours complained about the smell.

Officers found a pool of fat and grease inside Brizzi’s oven, which had a blood-stained handle. Semple’s DNA was found on chopsticks, a cooking pot and the oven.

Brizzi, who answered the door to officers wearing pink underpants, initially confessed to deliberately killing Semple, telling police at the scene: “Satan told me to.” But he later changed his account, claiming it was an accident caused by sexual asphyxiation.

A pathologist concluded that while strangulation was a possible cause of death, it would have taken minutes, rather than the momentary slip of the dog leash described by Brizzi.

Prosecutor Crispin Aylett QC confirmed that an odontologist found that Brizzi had eaten part the body of his victim after matching a bite mark on a rib discarded in the kitchen bin with the defendant’s lower teeth. He told the court: “It would be open to my lord to sentence on the basis Mr Brizzi did indeed attempt to eat part of PC Semple’s body.”

In mitigation, Sallie Bennett-Jenkins QC blamed Brizzi’s crystal meth addiction as she accepted the expert evidence. She said: “The behaviour can only be ascribed to taking of the drug cystal meth, which, as the court will know, has appalling effects on those who become addicted to it.”

Brizzi had “absolutely no recollection” of it and was “utterly horrified by it”, the barrister added.

In a statement after the murder, Semple’s family described him as “a loyal and much-loved long-term partner, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, cousin and friend to all”.

“We were devastated when the news broke of Gordon’s murder and the circumstances, which are still incredibly hard to deal with. It is still insurmountably upsetting.”

In a victim impact statement read to the court, PC Semple’s older brother, Ronald Semple, said his sibling had been regarded as a “Dixon of Dock Green character”.

He said his brother first took a job at RBS but then joined the police and completed more than 30 years’ service. He ran several marathons and organised trips to France and elsewhere for charity.

PC Semple was a “caring and gentle person” and “much loved” by his family, who were left devastated with the news of his murder, the court heard.