Samuel Gould, 33, a former aide to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, has been sentenced at Barkingside Magistrates Court to 22 weeks imprisonment suspended for two years after admitting two counts of exposure. Mr Gould, who was also serving as a Labour Party councillor in East London at the time of the offence, pleaded guilty to the two separate counts in early March.
News of Mr Gould’s shocking behaviour first broke on March 11, when The Sun revealed he had exposed himself to a 13-year-old girl before following her. The paper reported that the terrified teenager banged on doors for help as Mr Gould pursued her. The girl’s mother said her daughter had been left too scared to leave the house following the traumatic incident.
She had been walking to meet with friends when she saw Mr Gould sitting in his car performing a sex act with his trousers down.
Once realising he had been spotted, Mr Gould pursued her down a cul-de-sac, where he was caught by a fellow motorist who took down his car’s registration number.
He was then also linked with an earlier offence, in which a female dog walker caught Mr Gould sitting in his Mini Cooper “exposing his penis and… masturbating.”
His lawyer said his client “accepts the prosecution case” and accepts his behaviour had been “unlawful and reprehensible”.
He added that Mr Gould is now “getting specialist counselling” after starting to watch public exposure pornography following “difficulties in his personal life.”
He will spend the first six months on a GPS monitoring tag and be subject to notification requirements for seven years.
He was also given a seven-year Sexual Harm Prevention Order banning him from having any contact or communication with any female under 18.
He was also ordered to pay £239 in costs and surcharges.
Following his arrest, Health Secretary Wes Streeting sacked him immediately and called for him to quit Redbridge Council.
The shocked minister blasted: “There are no words to express my horror that a mother and her daughter have been put through this ordeal, and will have to deal with the trauma of it for some time to come.
“As soon as I was made aware of his arrest he was suspended, and as soon as the guilty plea was entered I took immediate steps to sack him through official HR processes.
“There are no excuses for his appalling behaviour. I am calling for him again to resign as a Redbridge councillor immediately.”
Mr Gould joined Wes Streeting’s office as a senior caseworker in 2019.
A colleague who worked with him described the revelations as feeling like they had been “punched in the stomach.”
“We are all just shell-shocked. He was affable, he was friendly, I trusted him.”
“I’ve been in the car with him alone. He wasn’t just a senior caseworker – he was an office manager.
“He went on school visits with Wes. He was someone I considered a friend – everyone considered him a friend.”
