Gordon Archibald Semple was born in Inverness on June 13, 1956, to parents Daniel and Georgina.
He grew up in the Raigmore area of the city and attended Inverness High School.
At 18, he moved to London to work in a bank, before moving to Dundee and then back to the capital.
He joined the police the 1980s and eventually became a constable in the Met’s antisocial behaviour unit attached to Westminster Council.
Mr Semple had been with his partner Gary Meeks for 25 years, and the couple lived in Greenhithe in Kent.
But Mr Meeks was oblivious about large parts of his partner’s life, and in 2006 Mr Semple secretly entered into a civil partnership with a man called Kam Chong.
He was an enthusiastic user of the gay dating app Grindr, even giving excuses to colleagues to nip out of the office for casual sex.
When police downloaded all the messages from his Grindr profile, there were more than 700 pages to sift through.
The last person to see him alive was long-time friend Jeff Green, who was the security manager at the Shangri-La Hotel in The Shard near London Bridge.
Mr Green told the court that during their coffee catch-up, Mr Semple had been in good spirits, and had told him about his new car and his plans for the future.
Mr Meeks reported the policeman missing early in the morning of April 2.