He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for the London mayoral elections of 2008 and of 2012, and until his retirement in May 2007 was a deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan Police Service.

In the latter capacity, Paddick attracted controversy by instructing his police officers not to arrest or charge people found with cannabis so that they could focus on crimes that were affecting the quality of life in the borough to a greater extent.

In late 2002, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that no charges would be brought against him in relation to alleged cannabis possession;[2][3] in December 2003 Paddick and The Mail on Sunday settled legal proceedings brought by him, with the newspaper accepting that a story it had published was false (which had alleged he had used cannabis), apologising, and paying damages.

During the investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) into the wrongful shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, Paddick stated that a member of the private office team of Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, had believed the wrong man had been targeted just six hours after the shooting.

On 28 March 2006, Paddick accepted a statement from the Metropolitan Police that it "did not intend to imply" a senior officer had misled the probe into the shooting and that "any misunderstanding is regretted".

[citation needed] Paddick joined the Metropolitan Police Service in 1976, living in Highbury and Limehouse while he worked for four years as a Constable in Holloway.

[10] During this period, he also worked in Deptford, Lewisham, Thornton Heath (where his brother was the local vicar) and Notting Hill while living in Sutton, Pimlico and Westminster, and for a while outside London.

[9] After a stint in the Specialist Crime Directorate, which deals with serious cases such as murder, kidnap and fraud, Paddick returned to borough-based policing, overseeing the northwest London boroughs of Barnet, Brent, Camden, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Islington between 2002 and 2003.

He was accountable for reducing "volume crime" in London (all offences up to and including rape in terms of seriousness) and increasing the number of offenders brought to justice.

He was also in the media spotlight as the senior Metropolitan Police Service spokesman for the Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales and after the 7 July 2005 London bombings.

[9] Following a widely publicised disagreement with Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, over the wrongful shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube station on 22 July 2005, Paddick was assigned the position of group director of information management, which he considered a "non-job".

Claiming that the Home Office had intervened for political reasons to ensure that Blair would not have to resign over the incident as it had occurred in the aftermath of 21 July 2005 London bombings, Paddick says he came to accept that his police career was over and that he would never achieve his goal of becoming a chief constable.

"[P]olice officers said they weren't prepared any longer to drop cannabis down the drain because one of their colleagues had been arrested by internal investigators apparently for doing just that.

The situation worsened when The Mail on Sunday published a false story by his former partner, James Renolleau, that Commander Paddick had used cannabis himself.

In verbal and written statements to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) on their investigations into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, he had stated that a member of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir Ian Blair's private office team believed the wrong man had been targeted just six hours after the shooting.

[23] On 28 March 2006, Paddick accepted a statement from the Metropolitan Police that it "did not intend to imply" a senior officer had misled the probe into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

[6] In a lengthy interview with Paddick published in The Daily Telegraph on 17 November 2007 detailing his thinking on becoming London Mayor, he made a revealing comment possibly connected with difficulties that have arisen because of the de Menezes killing: "Policing is a dangerous job, we should trust the professional judgement of officers on the front line.

An innocent man was killed by the police and in the absence of any individual officer being held to account, the person at the top should take responsibility.

On illegal drugs, he reiterated that they are "dangerous and harmful and it is better if people live without them", but that he had a "realistic approach" to enforcement and would not be afraid of adopting a "radical solution if it's fully thought through, if it's workable, affordable and gets the right result".

As regards the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London, he pledged to ensure that "the best possible show" would be staged with "value for money for every single pound spent".

[29] In addition, in a leaflet released on his campaign website on 10 September, he pledged to "put more police officers, fully trained, equipped and with the necessary powers out on the street, dealing with violent gun and knife crime", to take the lead in tackling climate change and minimising the impact on the environment by powering the London Underground with renewable energy, and to provide the right environment for business without interfering in businesses.

[34] On Thursday 16 June 2011, it was reported that Paddick had entered nomination papers to stand once again for the Liberal Democrats in the 2012 London mayoral elections.

[35] On election day itself, Paddick won 91,774 or 4.16% of the first preference votes, behind eventual winner Boris Johnson for the Conservatives, former mayor Ken Livingstone for Labour, and Greens candidate Jenny Jones.

He lost almost half of his support compared to 2008, mainly attributed to the performance of the coalition government in Westminster and the popularity levels of the Liberal Democrats on a national scale.

[38] Since childhood, Paddick has known he was gay, but between 1983 and 1988 he was married to Mary Stone in what he called "a genuine attempt to live as a straight man" – "It's what my faith as a Christian expected of me.

"[14] A November 2003 profile in The Guardian noted: "Mr Paddick is relaxed enough to laugh at himself and told a gay magazine: 'My last staff officer got promoted and went to royalty protection.

Interviewed by the show's hosts Ant & Dec after leaving the jungle, he explained his reasons for participating: "For a long time I've been doing serious stuff.

[45] In 2010, Paddick appeared on Channel 4's alternative election night special of Come Dine with Me alongside Edwina Currie, Rod Liddle and Derek Hatton.

"[46] In July 2018, Paddick revealed that he was a participant in the PrEP[47] (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) medication trials being carried out at the time by the NHS in England.