Police officer encouraged toxic WhatsApp culture

A former police officer has been found guilty of misconduct after a dozen colleagues were embroiled in his "toxic" WhatsApp culture.

Ex-police sergeant Paul Street, 41, encouraged his team to bully a teenage detainee and asked a colleague to send him a sex video of a female suspect, the Old Bailey heard.

The offences were committed while working at Cambridgeshire Constabulary, leading a team at Cambourne Police Station.

Following a trial, he was cleared of assaulting a drug dealer during an arrest and perverting the course of justice, but was found guilty of two charges of misconduct in a public office.

The defendant held his head in his hands in the dock as Judge Mark Lucraft KC remanded him into custody to be sentenced on 30 July.

Judge Lucraft observed the general public would be "shocked" to learn of the full extent of what Street had done.

Street joined the force in August 2005 and by 2021 was leading a team that mostly dealt with county lines drug supply and organised crime.

With his "robust" style, he got "impressive results", and found fame in TV crime shows.

He appeared on BBC show Britain's Teenage Drug Runners in 2017, and in 2019 was on Channel 4's Famous And Fighting Crime documentary.

However, anti-corruption officers uncovered Street's two WhatsApp groups in 2021 after a new police officer reported him.

Jurors heard 12 other officers had been investigated over their conduct arising from the "toxic" culture Street had created.

Pc Josh Williams, 38, from Huntingdon, pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office.

Of 11 others who were investigated, two resigned, one was dismissed for gross misconduct, one received a final warning and two received written warnings.

In 2020, Williams was tasked with examining the phone of a female suspect and told Street she was "quite fit".

Street asked him if there were "any nudes", and Williams replied that there was a video of the woman committing a sexual act.

Williams went on to send Street a photo from the woman's phone depicting her in underwear.

The following year, Street asked if Williams still had the intimate private video because he wanted to show it to "the lads from footy".

When interviewed about it, Street claimed he wanted to see the images to reassure himself the woman, who was released without charge, was not the victim of exploitative behaviour.

But Prosecutor Anne Whyte KC told jurors it was not Williams's job to discuss or share the private images, and neither was it Street's job to ask for nudes or the sex video.

Jurors heard Street's WhatsApp chat set the tone for junior officers to follow, making regular references to bullying suspects.

Giving evidence, Street admitted his messages on WhatsApp were "poor" but said the language was "gallows humour".

He told jurors: "That was part of the culture at the time. I am not solely responsible for that.

"I would say they are abusive messages and I should not have sent them. I was successful in my job and it did make me arrogant."

Street had previously admitted two offences of unlawful disclosure of personal data relating to information and screenshots he sent to his partner in 2020.

Ms Whyte suggested Street was more than a "maverick" officer with unorthodox methods and having good arrest rates did not justify his "out of control" behaviour.

She told jurors: "He broke the rules repeatedly and chose to ignore the fact that in doing so, he was not just dishonouring the trust that the public should have in the police, but he was behaving precisely like the criminals he loved to despise."

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