Police officers admit taking and sharing photos of bodies of murdered sisters

Two Metropolitan Police officers have admitted taking photographs at a murder scene and sharing them on WhatsApp.

Pc Deniz Jaffer, 47, and Pc Jamie Lewis, 33, were tasked with manning the cordon after the fatal stabbings of sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, in June 2020.

On Tuesday at the Old Bailey both officers, who were part of the North East Area Command, admitted one count of misconduct in public office.

An investigation found that while on duty in the park both Pc Jaffer and Pc Lewis left their posts and approached the bodies of the murdered women – risking contamination of the crime scene – to take pictures of them on their phones.

Pc Lewis edited one of the pictures by superimposing his own face onto the photograph with the victims in the background. He sent the resulting image to Pc Jaffer, who then forwarded it unsolicited to a female officer also present at the scene.

Pc Jaffer showed one of the photos of the victims to a male officer as they left the park. Pc Lewis also shared photos he had taken at the scene which did not show the victims with a WhatsApp group of 40-plus police officers called the ‘A Team’.

PC Jaffer meanwhile sent photographs of the victims to three friends via WhatsApp.

Paul Goddard, from the CPS, said: “Pc Jamie Lewis and Pc Deniz Jaffer’s senseless conduct fell way below that to be expected from police officers.

“These officers were tasked with protecting a tragic crime scene, but instead they violated it for their own purposes, with no regard to the dignity of the victims, or the harm they might do to a murder investigation.

“Their thoughtless and insensitive actions have no doubt caused immeasurable further distress and pain to the heartbroken family and friends of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry who were already left reeling from the loss of their loved ones. Our thoughts are very much with them at this time.”

The officers will be sentenced at the Old Bailey at a later date.

Danyal Hussein of Eltham, south east London, was on October 28 jailed for life for the murders of Henry and Smallman. The 19-year-old will serve a minimum of 35 years.