Two Metropolitan Police officers apologised when they appeared in court after taking photographs of two murdered sisters and sharing the photos on WhatsApp.
Pc Deniz Jaffer, 47, and Pc Jamie Lewis, 32, are charged with misconduct when they took the pictures of sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry at the crime scene last year at some point between June 27 and June 23.
The officers had been assigned to protect the scene after the two sisters were stabbed to death at Fryent Country Park in Wembley, in the early hours of June 6.
Social worker Ms Henry, from Brent and photographer Ms Smallman, from Harrow, had met friends the previous evening to celebrate the elder sister’s (Ms Henry’s) birthday.
Bibaa Henry, 46, (left) and Nicola Smallman, 27, were found stabbed to death in Fryent country park (Photo: Met Police)
People gradually left throughout the evening and by around 12.30am only the sisters remained. Officers believe they were murdered within the next couple of hours.
Their bodies were found in the park the next day.
The crime scene at Fryent Country Park (Photo: SWNS)
Ten days after the crime scene, the MPS’s Directorate of Professional Standards was informed that the officers took and shared pictures of the bodies, and they were arrested on June 22 last year.
They appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court today (May 27) to face a single charge which states each “misconducted” themselves “in a way which amounted to an abuse of the public’s trust in the office holder by without authorisation, entering 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 park was cordoned off after the bodies were found (Photo: SWNS)
Their lawyer Luke Ponte said: “There is an indication to be given and it’s an indication of a guilty plea on behalf of both defendants.”
He added: “They are sorry beyond measure for the pain that they have caused.”
Flowers left at the scene at Fryent Country Park (Photo: SWNS)
Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring sent the case to the Old Bailey on June 24 when they will be required to formally enter pleas, saying it was a “high profile” case.
Jaffer, of Hornchurch, east London, appeared in court dressed in a blue sweater over a checked shirt and wearing a black face mask.
Lewis, from Colchester, Essex, wore a dark suit with a waistcoat over a white shirt and burgundy tie, as well as a blue face mask.
The pair, who only spoke to confirm their names, addresses and dates of birth during the brief hearing, were granted unconditional bail.
The watchdog is also carrying out 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.
Specifically, the family of the sisters had to carry out their own searches and found the bodies before police helped.
Danyal Hussein, 19, of Guy Barnett Grove, Blackheath, south-east London, is facing trial at the Old Bailey in June accused of the sisters’ murders.
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