'DESPICABLE'
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.
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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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Jaffer, who has resigned from the force, and Lewis left the court without commenting to waiting journalists.
Asked if he would apologise to the family of the sisters, Jaffer nodded.
He and Lewis 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.
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
The sisters' mum Mina Smallman, who sat in court for the hearing, condemned the officers as "Despicable 1 and Despicable 2''.
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."
Speaking outside the Old Bailey today, she added that she did not believe Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick should lose her job, but criticised her response to the case.
Mrs Smallman told reporters: "She has not contacted us to say I am really sorry. She has not spoken into this story at all.
"And it's shameful that the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) had to tell the Met they should apologise to us in their failings for the missing persons (investigation)."
'DEEP REGRET'
Following their guilty pleas, the Met said it was taking "immediate steps" to put former PC Jaffer and PC Lewis before accelerated misconduct hearings.
Cressida Dick today expressed "deep regret" over the "utterly unprofessional, disrespectful and deeply insensitive" behaviour of the officers involved and issued a fresh apology to Mina Smallman and her family.
She said: "I deeply regret that at a time when they were grieving the loss of their loved ones who were taken in such awful circumstances, they faced additional distress caused by the actions of two police officers.
"What former PC Jaffer and PC Lewis chose to do that day was utterly unprofessional, disrespectful and deeply insensitive. I know that is the view of colleagues across the Met who utterly condemn this behaviour.
"I apologised to Bibaa and Nicole's family in June last year and, on behalf of the Met, I apologise again today."
What former PC Jaffer and PC Lewis chose to do that day was utterly unprofessional, disrespectful and deeply insensitive.
Dame Cressida Dick
IOPC regional director for London, Sal Naseem, today described the actions of Pc Jamie Lewis and former officer Deniz Jaffer as sickening.
He said: "They should have been protecting a crime scene but instead they treated it with contempt and disrespect."
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 cops' behaviour was "despicable" but their "disgusting lack of respect" did not mean they contaminated the crime scene.
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.
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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.
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Mum of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, sisters murdered by Danyal Hussein, gives statement after he was jailed for 35 years