Rep Steve always learning in Force and Fed roles

3 April 2025

He may have been in the police for almost 25 years, but the landscape involved in Federation rep Steve Reid’s current role means he never stops learning.

PC Steve, who has been a workplace representative for three years, is a digital media investigator, working closely with Derbyshire Police’s cybercrime and major crime units.

A response officer up to October 2019, he stepped into this position following a serious assault he experienced on duty.

This gave Steve the opportunity to reinvent himself as a cop and further some of the enthusiasm in other areas of policing he had picked up along the course of his career.

One area was cybercrime, whereby an interest was ignited through the completion of an attachment to the Force’s digital forensics unit while on the frontline.

 

PC Steve Reid is a Derbyshire Police Federation workplace rep.

 

“Even before the attachment, I’d always had an interest in crime with a digital element,” he said. “As a professional, a lot changed for me in that difficult incident a few years back, but I’m a really happy and motivated police officer in this role I have ended up in.

“My job is to look at established and emerging technologies and recover evidence which then feeds into the work of the cyber department, major crime, or anyone who requires our assistance.

“I mainly focus on open-source material – things that have been published online, on social media and other public internet forums – as well as helping to deliver other requests and interference warrants.

Responsibility

“The speed and precision of my work can impact people’s safety and the police’s ability to bring justice to cases, and I am proud to have that responsibility.”

Material Steve will typically help to expose includes content suggestive of domestic abuse, illegally published explicit content such as revenge pornography, and posts which incite violence and public disorder.

One high-profile case he worked on was the violence at a Kabaddi tournament – a competitive sport originating from India – in Derby last year, which left a number of people harmed and resulted in the convictions of seven men.

In August 2023, a field in Elvaston became the scene of mass brawl when men from two rival groups fought each other with firearms, knives, swords and bats.

Steve said: “We found connections to what happened on social media platforms. In particular, people had been discussing and billing the fight on Snapchat. A lot of the videos were also posted and live streamed on TikTok.

“This then helped us to trace back to the starting point and identify the communities and groups involved, so we could make the arrests needed.”

Cybercrime

For Steve, however, the role’s victories don’t come in specific cases, but by staying across the criminal picture as a whole.

He said: “Cybercrime is always developing and becoming more complicated.

“There’s crime which may start digitally and go on to facilitate something in the real world, and activity which remains online from start to finish.

“I had to become familiar with all the different motivations for cybercrime. Revenge porn, for example, is almost always driven by that desire to emotionally exploit someone and to humiliate them.

“And there’s more sophisticated ways to conduct financial crime like fraud and scamming, and to illegally acquire personal data.”

Experiences

The only way for the Force to respond to this, he says, is to evolve with up-to-date practices and processes towards crime linked to the digital world.

In his time as a workplace rep, Steve has used his past experiences to back officers who have been assaulted at work.

The 49-year-old required the help of the Federation to get through the circumstances he was dealt in 2019, and says it was there for him and his family ‘every step of the way’.

Now he wants to serve members, supporting those working in cybercrime and digital forensics living with trauma sustained on the job.

“There is good support for these officers through the Force, but I want members to know I’m here to help in whatever way I can.

“We can see all sorts across cyber and digital crime, so there needs to be that awareness on the mental health impact. There should be no expectation at all to hide something that has distressed us.”

Make a difference

Reflecting on his Force and Fed positions, he is relishing the responsibility of keeping his eyes open for searching and analysing, and his ears open for listening.

“I’m really enjoying my job and the sense of achievement I keep getting from it. The opportunities to make a difference never stop.

“And as a rep, I just want to be there for our members, always fighting their corner,” he said.