Former Cambridgeshire Police sergeant Paul Street, 41, has been found guilty of misconduct in public office after fostering a toxic WhatsApp culture that involved a dozen colleagues. The Old Bailey heard that Street encouraged his team to bully a teenage detainee and asked a colleague to send him a sex video of a female suspect.
Details of the Offences
Street, who led a team at Cambourne Police Station focusing on county lines drug supply and organised crime, was convicted of two charges of misconduct in a public office. The jury deliberated for three hours and 48 minutes before clearing him of assaulting a drug dealer during an arrest and perverting the course of justice. Street had previously admitted two offences of unlawful disclosure of personal data, sending information and screenshots to his partner in 2020.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC remanded Street into custody to be sentenced on July 30, noting that the general public would be “shocked” to learn of the full extent of his actions.
Impact on Colleagues
Jurors heard that 12 other officers were investigated over their conduct arising from the toxic culture Street created. Pc Josh Williams, 38, pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office. Of the 11 others investigated, two resigned, one was dismissed for gross misconduct, one received a final warning, two received written warnings, and five were dealt with for low-level performance issues.
Prosecutor Anne Whyte KC stated that Street “created a culture of bragging and intolerance towards suspects” and a “zero-tolerance attitude to anyone on his team who disagreed with his methods and sentiments.” She added, “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.”
Street's Background and Fame
Despite his “robust” style yielding “impressive results” in tackling serious crime, Street found fame on television. He appeared on the BBC show Britain’s Teenage Drug Runners in 2017 and Channel 4’s Famous And Fighting Crime documentary in 2019. However, anti-corruption officers uncovered Street’s two WhatsApp groups in 2021 after a new police officer reported him.
WhatsApp Messages and Bullying
The court focused on two WhatsApp groups created by Street, one with 17 colleagues and a second for his “inner circle.” In April 2020, Street called on his team to “bully” 17-year-old detainee Robiul Islam, encouraging them to “please hit him” and “smash his head in.” In autumn 2020, Williams was tasked with examining the phone of a female suspect he told Street was “quite fit.” Street asked if there were “any nudes,” and Williams replied there was a video of the woman committing a sexual act. Williams then sent Street a photo from the woman’s phone depicting her in underwear. The following year, Street asked if Williams still had the intimate video because he wanted to show it to “the lads from footy.”
When interviewed, Street claimed he wanted to see the images to ensure the woman, who was released without charge, was not a victim of exploitative behaviour. But Ms Whyte told jurors it was not Williams’s job to discuss or share private images, nor Street’s job to ask for nudes or the sex video.
Street's Defence and Sentencing
Giving evidence, Street admitted his WhatsApp messages were “poor” but described the language as “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.” Ms Whyte suggested Street was more than a “maverick” officer with unorthodox methods, and that 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.”
