A police sergeant who drunkenly tried to steal a set of headphones, slapped his victim and then brandished his badge to scare him off seeking help has been fired from the force.

Special Police Sgt Moynul Alom, suspended from the Metropolitan Police following the incident, was sacked without notice after being found guilty of gross misconduct on Wednesday.

A misconduct panel at the Met’s Empress State Building in Earls Court heard how he had been off-duty near Westfield Stratford City with a friend when he passed the seller on May 21.

After a brief exchange, where he offered a quarter of the headphones’ £200 asking price, he tried to forcibly grab the bag containing the device from the man three times, later claiming he wanted to “inspect” it.

The seller refused and SPS Alom tried to physically move him along from his pitch.

CCTV footage timestamped between 3.15pm and 3.23pm captured the pair follow the vendor, during which time SPS Alom “struck or slapped” the man on the face with his right hand, according to panel chair Siobhan Goodrich.

The recording, she noted, did not show the attack, but shows the vendor, previously seen behaving in a “calm manner”, suddenly recoil and begin “gesticulating and shouting” as the pair left the scene in a hurry.

When interviewed, SPS Alom denied using violence and maintained he only pulled at the bag once as he suspected the seller was running a scam.

While “intoxication” may have “impaired” his account of events, the panel concluded he knew the severity of his actions and knowingly provided “partial” testimony.

They found he had breached the Met’s standards of professional behaviour in respect of honesty and integrity; authority, respect and courtesy; use of force; and discreditable conduct.

PS Kamran Qureshi, the Police Federation representative for SPS Alom, called the incident “a one-off” which did not reflect the officer’s community, volunteering and mentoring work.

But the chair maintained firing him was needed to ensure public confidence in the police.

Neither SPS Alom nor the victim attended the two-day hearing.