Former police officer who sent pictures of an arrested woman’s genitals to four colleagues after finding them on her phone is spared jail
- Steven Albee pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to menace or harass
- Sydney policeman admitted to uploading photos of woman’s genitals in 2017
- He was convicted but given a two-year good behaviour bond and escaped jail
A former police officer who accessed intimate photos on the phone of a woman he’d arrested and shared them on social media has been spared jail time.
Steven Albee, 29, pleaded guilty last year to using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.
The Sydney policeman admitted to uploading photos of the woman’s genitals to a Facebook chat group shared with four colleagues in 2017.
Steven Albee (pictured arriving at court), 29, pleaded guilty last year to using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend
The Sydney policeman (pictured leaving court) admitted to uploading photos of the woman’s genitals to a Facebook chat group shared with four colleagues in 2017
He was arrested in 2018 and suspended without pay, but is no longer employed by New South Wales Police.
On Tuesday, Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson in Downing Centre Local Court convicted Albee and imposed the commonwealth equivalent of a two-year good behaviour bond.
Ms Atkinson noted she would have sent Albee to jail if not for a confidential letter from the police ‘in relation to matters of assistance’.
Albee arrested the woman after she declined a roadside drug test in April 2017.
Albee was working within the Nepean Police Area Command in Sydney’s west at the time, and took her back to the local police station.
The woman’s phone was confiscated and searched using investigative software, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The software provided the accused access to four explicit photos, three of the woman’s genitals and a fourth of a man’s torso and penis – later confirmed to be the woman’s boyfriend.
Albee (pictured) was working within the Nepean Police Area Command in Sydney’s west at the time, and took her back to the local police station
Albee chose two of the pictures of the woman and forwarded them onto three colleagues in a group chat on Facebook.
Albee told the other men he took the images from a phone of a woman he had arrested.
The woman told the Professional Standards Command she never agreed to have the pictures shared with anybody else, and confirmed they were for private use.
She said she felt ‘upset and embarrassed’ that they had been shared.
Her partner echoed her statement, saying he was ‘upset and angry’ over the ordeal.