Met Police officers superimposed FACE on sick snaps of murdered Wembley sisters’ bodies and sent it to pals
TWO Metropolitan Police officers superimposed one of their faces onto sick pictures of two murdered sisters before sharing the graphic pics to pals on WhatsApp.
Pc Deniz Jaffer and Pc Jamie Lewis were assigned to protect the scene after sisters Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, were found dead in bushes in Fryent Country Park in Wembley, north-west London.
Instead, they breached the cordon to take “inappropriate” and “unauthorised” photographs of the bodies, which they then shared on WhatsApp.
Lewis took two photos while Jaffer took four – before sending them on to a female colleague also at the scene.
In the sickening act, PC Lewis’s face had been superimposed onto one of the victims’ bodies before the pair sent the picture to pals.
PC Lewis also shared photos he had taken at the crime scene with a WhatsApp group of 40-plus police officers called the ‘A Team’.
Those pictures did not show the victims.
At a hearing at the Old Bailey today, both officers admitted committing misconduct in a public office between June 7 and June 23 last year.
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They had been assigned to guard the deposition site on June 8.
The cops arrived at 3.30am and were placed at the inner cordon closest to the bodies.
They were instructed to remain at their posts and maintain the integrity of the scene.
But a female colleague – identified only as Pc 3 – saw them walking backwards and forwards to talk to each other.
Pc 3 was then approached by the defendants, who told her that the victims’ bodies were inside a bush close to where one of them had been standing.
A while later, the female cop received a WhatsApp message from Jaffer – initially referred to as Pc 1 – containing four photographs of the bodies.
One of the images had the face of Lewis – Pc 2 – superimposed on it.
Jurors were told that the images were subsequently circulated by both defendants.
The court also heard that the bodies would not have been visible from the path next to the bushes so, in order to photograph them, the officers would have had to move from their posts.
Meanwhile, neither officer was wearing protective clothing that night.
The victims’ mum, Mina Smallman, has condemned the officers as “Despicable 1 and Despicable 2”.
Our family’s grief was further compounded by the cordon officers who will now be known as Despicable 1 and 2 – any inner strength I had reserved had been torn away.
Mina Smallman
She said: “Our family’s grief was further compounded by the cordon officers who will now be known as Despicable 1 and 2 – any inner strength I had reserved had been torn away.”
Jaffer, 47, of Hornchurch, east London, and Lewis, 33, from Colchester, Essex, were arrested as part of a criminal investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog.
The pair, who were attached to the Met’s North East command unit, were both suspended from duty following their arrests on June 22 last year and granted unconditional court bail.
The charge against each of them stated that “without authorisation he entered a crime scene he had been assigned to protect, sending information about his attendance at the scene to members of the public via WhatsApp and taking photographs of the crime scene”.
Following their arrest, samples of the officers’ DNA were taken and found not to match any outstanding samples.
Blood and DNA from the bodies and surrounding area led investigators to Danyal Hussein, who was last week jailed for life for the murders of Ms Henry and Ms Smallman.
During Hussein’s trial, the jury heard the victims had been celebrating Ms Henry’s birthday when they were viciously stabbed by Hussein.
Hussein had then dragged their bodies into bushes and left them with their limbs entwined in a deliberate act to defile them in death.
Some 36 hours later, the sisters were found by Ms Smallman’s distraught boyfriend, Adam Stone, 35, after he became concerned when she failed to return home to their pet bearded dragon.
‘DESPICABLE’
Hussein’s defence team had called into question the two officers’ actions as they examined whether the incriminating DNA evidence could have been contaminated.
But, in his closing speech, prosecutor Oliver Glasgow QC rejected any suggestion that the bodies were touched or interfered with in any way by the officers.
He told jurors: “The only police officers about who you should have any hesitations are Pcs 1 and 2, whose behaviour in leaving the cordon and in taking and sharing photographs of Bibaa and Nicole was despicable.
“It is no part of the Crown’s case to defend them for what they did: they have been charged and, if convicted, they will never wear a police uniform ever again.
“But their disgusting lack of respect does not mean that you are entitled to conclude that they contaminated the crime scene or that the swabs taken from Bibaa and Nicole’s ankles are in some way compromised.”
He said the photographs were taken from some distance away and any suggestion that the bodies were touched was “utterly groundless”.
At an earlier hearing at magistrates’ court, a lawyer for the two officers apologised on their behalf for the “pain that they have caused” and indicated that they would plead guilty to misconduct.
The IOPC also concluded a separate inquiry into how the Met handled calls from worried relatives and friends of missing Ms Smallman and Ms Henry before their bodies were discovered on June 7.
Mrs Smallman has dismissed an apology from the Metropolitan Police after the force’s response to their deaths was found by the watchdog to be below standard.