Paul Street: Ex-TV police officer who filmed threats aimed at a child jailed

A former police sergeant who asked a colleague to send him an intimate video of a member of the public has been jailed for four years.

Paul Street, 41, was sentenced at the Old Bailey on Wednesday after being found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office (MIPO) following a trial in June.

The former Cambridgeshire Constabulary officer, who fostered a "toxic" WhatsApp culture among his team, appeared in television crime shows on the BBC and Channel 4, and was known for getting "impressive results" through his "robust" style.

Street, from Huntingdon, headed the southern Neighbourhood Impact Team from Cambourne police station in Cambridgeshire, mainly dealing with county lines drug supply and organised crime.

Street, who quit the force in 2024, encouraged colleagues to "bully" a teenage detainee and asked a workmate to send him a sex video of a female suspect.

Anti-corruption officers uncovered Street's two WhatsApp groups in 2021 after a new officer reported him.

In messages investigators found on his phone, he encouraged using violence against the boy, 17, including "smash his little head in".

He also filmed and shared a video of himself using offensive language and making threats that were intended to be shown to the child.

He was convicted of MIPO for those actions and an incident where Street's colleague, PC Josh Williams, was accessing the contents of a suspected drug dealer's phone and told Street she was "quite fit".

The woman had warned the arresting officers that there were private, intimate photos on her phone because she wanted to ensure they were not shared.

In October 2020, Williams, 38, also from Huntingdon, messaged Street to tell him about the phone's content. Street asked Williams if there were "any nudes?".

The WhatsApp exchange indicated that Williams took a photo of the woman's camera roll showing numerous images of her in underwear and forwarded this to Street.

Williams also told him about an intimate video on the phone and, six months later, Street messaged Williams asking if he still had the video so he could "show the lads from footy", although there was no evidence the video was shared.

In court on Wednesday, the woman told of her "overwhelming sense of shock, violation, anger and humiliation".

Reading her victim personal statement, the woman said the defendants' conduct left her feeling "exposed, degraded and powerless".

Street and Williams "abused their position in order to invade my privacy in an extremely personal and humiliating way.

"I feel violated by these individuals who were in a position of power over me at the time."

Mitigating, Jennifer Dempster KC said Street "enormously regrets his behaviour" and made a significant contribution to disrupting the drug trade before his 17-year career came to a "crashing end".

Ms Dempster said: "He recognises he has not only let the public down, he has let the police down and he has let his family down."

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For Williams, Robert Morris said: "He recognises what he did was deeply inappropriate, driven by misguided and stupid desire to engage in salacious gossip."

Williams, who was dismissed after pleading guilty to MIPO last year, was jailed for 16 months.

Street previously admitted two offences of unlawful disclosure of personal data.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC said many thousands of officers would be "utterly horrified" by the defendants' actions and attitude which were "both appalling and inexplicable".

Emily Barry, from the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) called Street's behaviour "appalling and a complete abuse of his position.

"The public would also be shocked at knowing officers shared intimate photos from a woman's phone without any policing purpose and that Street made a video threatening a child who was detained in custody.

Eleven other officers were investigated over their conduct arising from the team's "toxic" culture.

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.

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