Former police officer found guilty of misconduct over 'toxic' WhatsApp culture
Ex-sergeant Paul Street was found guilty of two charges of misconduct in a public office at the Old Bailey on Friday
A former police officer has been found guilty of misconduct after a ‘toxic’ WhatsApp culture led to action against 12 officers.
Listen to this article
Former Sergeant Paul Street, 41, admitted the culture within his team's WhatsApp groups led to 12 more officers at Cambridgeshire Constabulary being investigated.
Street accepted his WhatsApp messages were both "poor" and "abusive".
He also admitted he had grown "arrogant" after becoming a minor celebrity for catching drug dealers.
Street insisted the messages shared among his team were merely "gallows humour" and said his team were just one of many other teams in the force with WhatsApp groups.
Read more: Man, 35, admits threatening to kill Jewish schoolchildren
In contrast, prosecutor Anne Whyte KC said Street had created a culture of "bragging and intolerance towards suspects" and fostered a "zero-tolerance attitude" towards anyone in his team who disagreed.
Street's behaviour was reported by a new colleague, and the WhatsApp groups were uncovered by anti-corruption officers.
Ms Whyte confronted Street over the "car crash" he had created.
The investigation into Street also resulted in 12 other officers being examined, with Ms Whyte outlining a "long and sorry list of findings" against them.
PC Josh Williams, 38, from Huntingdon was one of the twelve officers who have faced investigation.
Williams pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office relating to messages about a female suspect whose phone he was tasked with examining.
The officers accepted using derogatory language about members of the public during WhatsApp conversations, the court heard.
During his trial at the Old Bailey, Street refused to accept the lengthy disciplinary proceedings as his "legacy".
He told jurors: "We dealt with drug dealers all the time and this was our bread and butter. The language used is not literal. Every team in the police force had a WhatsApp chat."
Street was found guilty of two counts of misconduct in a public office on Friday.
He was cleared of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and perverting the course of justice.
Before the trial began, he admitted two offences of unlawfully disclosing personal data relating to information and screenshots he sent to his partner in 2020.