Two metropolitan police officers plead guilty to misconduct over sharing photos of murdered sisters on WhatsApp
PC Deniz Jaffer and PC Jamie Lewis pleaded guilty on Tuesday to charges of misconduct in public office between June 7 and June 23, 2020 after breaching a cordon to take and share photos of two murdered sisters on Whatsapp.
The two officers had been deployed to protect the scene of the attack after 46-year-old Bibaa Henry and 27-year-old Nicole Smallman were found brutally stabbed in some bushes in a London park.
The policemen pled guilty to charges of misconduct in public office after being charged with breaching a police cordon to take “inappropriate” and “unauthorised” photos of the murdered sisters before sharing the images on WhatsApp.
Jaffer had been accused of taking four photographs, while Lewis took two, one of which was sent to a female colleague with Lewis’s face superimposed onto the victim’s body.
They were both detained following an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The two Metropolitan Police Officers, who’d served in the force’s North East command unit, have been suspended from duty since June 2020, pending the outcome of the trial.
Following their guilty pleas, one of the victim’s mothers, Mina Smallman, called the actions of the officers “despicable.”
The two victims, who were sisters, were killed by 19-year-old Danyal Hussein, who was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years last week. Hussein murdered Henry and Smallman as a “sacrifice” to a demon, which he believed would bring him “wealth and power” and help him win the lottery. Police fear that, had he not been caught, Hussein would have struck again, after finding he’d written a letter promising to “perform a minimum of six sacrifices every six months for as long as I am free and physically capable.”
The policemen pled guilty to charges of misconduct in public office after being charged with breaching a police cordon to take “inappropriate” and “unauthorised” photos of the murdered sisters before sharing the images on WhatsApp.
Jaffer had been accused of taking four photographs, while Lewis took two, one of which was sent to a female colleague with Lewis’s face superimposed onto the victim’s body.
They were both detained following an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC). The two Metropolitan Police Officers, who’d served in the force’s North East command unit, have been suspended from duty since June 2020, pending the outcome of the trial.
Following their guilty pleas, one of the victim’s mothers, Mina Smallman, called the actions of the officers “despicable.”
The two victims, who were sisters, were killed by 19-year-old Danyal Hussein, who was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years last week. Hussein murdered Henry and Smallman as a “sacrifice” to a demon, which he believed would bring him “wealth and power” and help him win the lottery. Police fear that, had he not been caught, Hussein would have struck again, after finding he’d written a letter promising to “perform a minimum of six sacrifices every six months for as long as I am free and physically capable.”
