A Met police officer who posted a series of offensive messages about Margaret Thatcher on the internet resigned today.

Sergeant Jeremy Scott handed in his notice after being told he faced suspension for writing messages on Twitter, including one saying that he hoped the former prime minister’s death was “painful and degrading”.

The 52-year-old serving officer, who worked in a back room role, also suggested that the world would be a “better place” if David Cameron, too, were dead. In another post under the Twitter name Thin Blue Speck, he asked whether a flypast would “bomb” Lady Thatcher’s coffin and said her passing was “87 years too late”.

He said: “Goodnight Twitter. The world is a better place today now that c*** is dead. Now for Cameron, May and Osborne.”

Senior officers were said to be appalled by the comments and were preparing to suspend the officer when he handed in his papers this morning.

Commander Allan Gibson, the head of the Met’s Department for Professional Standards, said today: “This officer’s behaviour is completely unacceptable and it is right that he has resigned.”

Sources said that Sgt Scott handed in his papers just “minutes” before he was due to be formally suspended. Once a police officer is suspended he cannot resign.

Senior officers are understood to have waived his notice period and told him to leave immediately.

The officer is also thought to have posted comments under another Twitter identity called GovernmentThug, which has just 21 followers. In this, he described himself as a “pleb and proud” — a reference to the Andrew Mitchell affair.

In one series of messages about Home Secretary Theresa May, he described strangling her, digging out her heart with a dagger and assaulting her. He added: “After all, she’s screwing us and giving nothing back so it’s only fair I do the same.”

Scotland Yard said today that the force’s internal affairs department had launched an investigation into the comments. The Met is understood to have received a number of complaints.

The officer’s resignation comes as London goes on riot alert in the run- up to Lady Thatcher’s funeral next Wednesday. Pubs and businesses in central London have been told to prepare for potential disorder this weekend as anarchists plot to “re-act” the poll tax riots in Trafalgar Square.

Publicans have been told to remove all their furniture such as tables and chairs from outside their premises and keep it inside.