A former Cambridgeshire Police sergeant has been sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of misconduct in UK public office over conduct that included encouraging the mistreatment of a teenage detainee and seeking access to an intimate video belonging to a female suspect.
Paul Street, 41, who previously appeared in BBC and Channel 4 crime documentaries, was found guilty of two counts of misconduct in public office. He also admitted two offences of unlawfully disclosing personal data relating to information and screenshots he sent to his partner in 2020.
The investigation into Street began after a newly appointed police officer reported concerns about his conduct, leading anti-corruption officers to uncover two WhatsApp groups in 2021. Street committed the offences while working for Cambridgeshire Constabulary and leading a unit at Cambourne Police Station that mainly dealt with county lines drug supply and organised crime.
Prosecutor Anne Whyte KC told the court that Street “created a culture of bragging and intolerance towards suspects” and had a “zero-tolerance attitude to anyone on his team who disagreed with his methods and sentiments”. “He was not just promoting inappropriate attitudes, he was positively creating a toxic culture which junior officers would find difficult to challenge and likely to adopt,” Whyte said.
In April 2020, Street used a WhatsApp group to call on members of his team to “bully” a 17-year-old detainee, including messages encouraging colleagues to “please hit him” and “smash his head in”. Later that year, PC Josh Williams was tasked with examining the phone of a female suspect and told Street that he considered the woman “quite fit”.
Street asked whether the phone contained “any nudes”, and Williams replied that there was a video showing the woman engaged in a s3xual act. Williams subsequently sent Street a photograph obtained from the woman’s phone showing her in underwear.
The following year, Street asked Williams through WhatsApp whether he still had the intimate video because he wanted to show it to “the lads from footy”. When questioned about the messages, Street said he wanted to see the material to reassure himself that the woman, who was ultimately released without charge, was not the victim of exploitative behaviour.
Jurors were told, however, that it was not Williams’s responsibility to discuss or share the woman’s private images and that Street had no professional reason to request the nud3s or s3x video. Giving evidence during the trial, Street acknowledged that his WhatsApp messages were “poor” but described the language as “gallows humour” and part of the workplace culture at the time.
He also told jurors that his success in policing had made him “arrogant”. Street previously appeared in the BBC documentary Britain’s Teenage Drug Runners in 2017 and Channel 4’s Famous And Fighting Crime in 2019. Williams, 38, was separately sentenced to 16 months in prison.
Eleven other officers were investigated over their conduct arising from what prosecutors described as the “toxic” culture fostered by Street. Two resigned, one was dismissed for gross misconduct, one received a final warning, two received written warnings and five were dealt with over lower-level performance issues.
Lisa Rose, Senior Specialist Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, said the case demonstrated an abuse of the responsibilities entrusted to police officers.
“This case exposed a sustained pattern of unacceptable conduct by a police officer who abused his position of trust,” Rose said. Paul Street repeatedly crossed clear professional boundaries, by encouraging the mistreatment of detainees and seeking access to intimate material that had no place in a criminal investigation.
“Police officers are entrusted with significant powers and are expected to uphold the highest standards at all times. Members of the public should have confidence that any personal material obtained during an investigation will be handled lawfully and appropriately. The actions of Paul Street and Joshua Williams represented a serious breach of that trust.”