Rye police sergeant pleads guilty to theft

Warren Downs, 46, based in the neighbourhood policing team at Rye, appeared at Crawley Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Wednesday, September 7), where he pleaded guilty to the theft of two items of police property.

Downs had sold his work-issued Samsung Galaxy S4 smartphone on eBay and also pleaded guilty to stealing a Concept Pro Dome CCTV camera valued at approximately £130 from the force.

Magistrates imposed a 12-month community order to undertake 100 hours of unpaid work and he was ordered to pay £85 costs.

Police said he is voluntarily paying compensation to the person who he sold the phone to after the device was seized by police as evidence. There was no Sussex Police information or data stored on the phone.

He will now face an internal disciplinary process.

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