Cambridgeshire Police officer handed final warning for sharing confidential images of 13 and 17 year old victims via WhatsApp

PC Amadae Dowd was handed a final written for a period of three years after being found guilty of misconduct following a hearing in April.

The panel conducting the misconduct hearing found that PC Dowd shared confidential and evidential photographs of vulnerable and teenage victims on WhatsApp without a legitimate policing purpose.

The offences:

- On February 10, PC Dowd was assigned to ensure the safety of a 13-year-old who had been the victim of very serious abuse and neglect and was extremely vulnerable. The child was in hospital and she sat with them.

- PC Dowd was aware of the extent of the abuse, including that the child had been locked in an address for months with no food, had been beaten up and injured. The child’s face was badly burnt.

- PC Dowd sent an image of the child via WhatsApp to a colleague. The image was a cropped image of an evidential photograph.

-PC Dowd sent a second image showing an adult female whose face had been badly burned in an acid attack. The image was a cropped image of an evidential photograph.

- PC Dowd knew it was wrong to do so and told the recipient ‘Obvs delete.’

- On April 14, 2021, PC Dowd was at hospital with another child (aged 17). It was believed that the child had packed drugs in their anus. The child was vulnerable.

- When monitoring the child, she asked ‘Have you killed him?’ At 20:40 she sent a picture of the child sat on the edge of a bed and doubled up in a WhatsApp group with a message saying, ‘Maybe?!’

PC Dowd told the panel that she had never seen any policy relating to the use of social media and could not recall any input in her training about such but acknowledged that there would have been some input on this topic.

She added that her team were encouraged by her sergeant to utilise WhatsApp as a medium of communication for her team members for ‘work matters’ and this was apparently an accepted practice within the force at the time of the events the panel were dealing with.

She expanded upon her explanation previously given that her conversation and provision of the photographs complained of to her sergeant was a form of welfare, and that it was a means of ‘offloading’ and ‘decompressing.’ She did this she said because she found the details of the offences being investigated, including the nature of the injuries suffered by the victims, so disturbing and ‘outside her experience.’

The two photographs she sent to her sergeant via WhatsApp were obtained from the file relating to the two victims. She used her personal ‘phone to take the pictures from the file and then sent them.

She accepted that she had told her sergeant to ‘obviously delete’ the photos but did so because he would not need to retain them once seen. It was her way she said of more accurately describing the injuries than using words. She accepted that once sent, she would have no control over their subsequent use.

Regarding the incident with the 17-year-old, she told the panel that the youth was very difficult to deal with, being volatile and aggressive, threatening to rape her and her children. Again, she claimed that the messaging and sharing of the photograph was a form of ‘decompression’ and the officer’s involved used dark humour as a ‘pressure valve.’

She accepted at the hearing that she had acted unprofessionally and that she and others were responding to how the youth had treated them. The panel found that there was an element of degradation and mocking by the officer towards the youth.

The panel found: “Given that the officer’s actions were deliberate and intentional and involved vulnerable victims her culpability was found to be high as was the level of harm caused.

Therefore, the panel found that such breaches amount to gross misconduct.

"There is potential serious harm caused to wider public confidence. Officers disclosing sensitive photographs of members of the public, even within closed Whatsapp groups, would and has caused significant concerns to the public. The public should trust that such data is protected and secure.”

PC Dowd was issued with a final written warning, with the panel believing such a sanction ‘would serve to uphold standards and to deter others.’

The warning will remain in place for three years.