Two Metropolitan Police officers have admitted sharing photos of two murdered sisters on WhatsApp – with one superimposing his own face onto one of the shots.
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.
But instead, they breached the cordon to take ‘inappropriate’ and ‘unauthorised’ photographs of the bodies, which were then shared on WhatsApp.
Jaffer took four photographs and Lewis took two and one of the images sent to a female colleague had Lewis’s face superimposed onto it.
Police watchdog the IOPC later revealed Lewis also used ‘degrading and sexist language’ to describe the victims in the WhatsApp team group of 42 colleagues.
At a hearing at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, the officers admitted committing misconduct in a public office between June 7 and June 23 last year.
The Recorder of London, Judge Mark Lucraft bailed the officers ahead of sentence on a date to be fixed.
Pc Jamie Lewis leaves the Old Bailey, after pleading guilty to misconduct in a public office
PC Deniz Jaffer arrives at the Old Bailey in London, charged with misconduct in a public office
Unmasked: PC Jaffer, 47, was charged with misconduct in a public office over the pictures
Mina Smallman, mother of Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, at court this morning
He said: ‘The essential part of your duty was to remain at your posts and to preserve the integrity of the crime scene.
‘You took photographs of the crime scene.. You superimposed the head over another.’
The sisters’ mother Mina Smallman, who has described the officers as ‘despicable’, sat in court for the hearing.
Outside the courthouse she said of Met Commissioner Cressida Dick: ‘She has not contacted us to say I am really sorry. She has not spoken into this story at all.
‘Too little too late. Too little too late. When I was in a senior position, if my organisation or department failed, it was on me.
‘I had to take the can for it. Well it’s now time for them to take the can for it. They are beyond hope.
‘You go to London to start to prepare the funeral of your dead children and then you are forced to have a meeting with the IOPC and the then commander to tell you that police officers that should have been protecting the area had actually taken selfies and sent them out to a dentist and a doctor and a WhatsApp group.’
Jaffer, 47, of Hornchurch, east London, and Lewis, 33, from Colchester, Essex, had been arrested as part of a criminal investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog.
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’.
The sisters’ mother Mina Smallman, who has described the officers as ‘despicable’, sat in court for the hearing.
Paul Goddard, from the CPS, said outside court: ‘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 pair, attached to the Met’s North East command unit, were both suspended from duty following their arrests on June 22 last year.
Jaffer, of Hornchurch, east London, and Lewis, from Colchester, Essex, are on unconditional bail.
On Thursday the mother of Ms Henry and Ms Smallman vowed to stop him ever being released from prison.
Mina Smallman said justice had been done for her ‘beautiful girls’ as their ‘deluded’ killer was locked up for at least 35 years.
Mrs Smallman had looked on while Danyal Hussein sat with his back to the court as he was jailed for life via video link from Belmarsh prison.
Artists impression of PC Jamie Lewis and PC Deniz Jaffer appearing at the Old Bailey today
Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, who were stabbed to death in Wembley last year
Murderer: Danyal Hussein, 19, who killed sisters Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, seen here in his police mugshot
The sisters (above), who had been celebrating Ms Henry’s birthday with friends, were found the following day by Ms Smallman’s boyfriend
Mina Smallman, mother of the two victims looking on as Danyal Hussein appears in the dock at the Old Bailey, where he would try to intimidate and provoke her. She refused and would smile and wink back
Speaking outside the Old Bailey, in central London, Mrs Smallman condemned the 19-year-old, who had stabbed her daughters to death after making a pact with a devil.
On his behaviour in court, she said: ‘It’s all a performance. There is nothing wrong with him. He’s just an obnoxious human being.’
She went on: ‘He is a broken human being who, if he had not been caught, four other families may have been suffering what we have.
‘Well he ain’t out there now and I think he is so deluded, come 35 years’ time they will not let him out.
‘I will not let them.’
Mrs Smallman went on: ‘There will be no celebrations here but justice has been done.’
She called for a review of the law, after the court heard that Hussein could not be handed a whole life order because of his youth.
She praised the Metropolitan Police for bringing Hussein to justice, saying she did not ‘cast a whole organisation by one particular sort of incident’.
But in the wake of a critical police watchdog report on the handling of the sisters’ missing persons report, she said there was an ‘underground that has infiltrated and is growing in our Metropolitan Police’.
She also thanked the media who had followed the case, saying: ‘Everybody is worth knowing about.’
On her daughters, she said: ‘They were beautiful, beautiful girls.
‘Bibaa left behind a daughter who has given birth to a son in the last year and I am a great grandmother.’
She said Ms Henry had been an ‘amazing’ social worker but she grieved for her younger daughter Ms Smallman more because ‘she had 20 years less than Bibaa’.
She added: ‘Good girls – I’m really proud of them.’
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