Disgraced TV cop who created ‘toxic’ WhatsApp culture and asked colleague to send sex video of female suspect jailed

A DISGRACED celebrity police officer who created a “toxic” WhatsApp culture has been jailed after asking for a female suspect’s sex video.

Paul Street, 41, found fame in television shows on the and Channel 4 and was known for getting “impressive results” through his “robust” style.

But anti-corruption officers began investigating him and uncovered his two groups in 2021 after a new police officer reported him.

He encouraged colleagues to “bully” a teenage detainee and asked a workmate to send him a sex video of a female suspect.

The vile offences were committed while working at Cambridgeshire Constabulary leading a unit at Cambourne Police Station, mainly dealing with county lines drug supply and organised crime.

Street has now been jailed for four years after he was found guilty of two charges of misconduct in a public office.

The cop also admitted two offences of unlawful disclosure of personal data relating to information and screenshots he sent to his partner in 2020.

Eleven other officers were investigated over their conduct arising from the “toxic” culture Street had fostered.

Of those, two resigned, one was dismissed for gross misconduct, one received a final warning, two received written warnings, and five others were dealt with for low level performance issues.

Prosecutor Anne Whyte KC had described how 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 had said: “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.”

In April 2020, Street called on his team to “bully” a 17-year-old detainee – encouraging them to “please hit him” and “smash his head in”.

In the autumn of 2020, PC Josh Williams was tasked with examining the phone of a female suspect he told Street was “quite fit”.

Street asked him if there were “any nudes”, and Williams replied 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 on WhatsApp if Williams still had the intimate private video because he wanted to show it to “the lads from footy”.

When he was 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 jurors were told 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.

Giving evidence, Street admitted his messages on WhatsApp were “poor” but said the language was “gallows humour” and part of the culture at the time.

He also told jurors that being successful in his job had made him “arrogant”.

Street had previously appeared on BBC show Britain’s Teenage Drug Runners in 2017, and in 2019 was on Channel 4’s Famous And Fighting Crime documentary.

Williams, 38, was sentenced to 16 months’ imprisonment today.

Lisa Rose, Senior Specialist Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, said: “This case exposed a sustained pattern of unacceptable conduct by a police officer who abused his position of trust.

“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.”