London police officers face jail over shared crime scene photos

Two police officers who took photos of two murdered sisters at a crime scene in London were sentenced on Monday.

Police Constable Deniz Jaffer and Police Constable Jamie Lewis were assigned to guard the crime scene overnight after the 46 and 27-year-old victims were found dead in a bush in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, north-west London.

Instead, they breached the cordon to take inappropriate and unauthorised photographs of the bodies, which were then shared on WhatsApp.

Lewis even superimposed his face onto a picture with the victims in the background.

He sent the doctored image to Jaffer, who forwarded it to a female officer at the scene.

Jaffer went on to show one of the photos to a male officer as they left the park and sent others to three friends on WhatsApp.

Lewis, who used degrading and sexist language, also shared crime scene pictures with a WhatsApp group of 40-plus officers called the A Team.

The pair, who were attached to the Metropolitan Police’s North East command unit, were suspended from duty following their arrests on June 22, 2020.

Jaffer, 47, of Hornchurch, east London, and Lewis, 33, from Colchester, Essex, pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office.

They would be sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft on Monday at the Old Bailey.

Previously, the sisters’ mother called on the Metropolitan Police to get the rot out once and for all.

Earlier, a tribunal found the officers had committed gross misconduct.

Lewis was dismissed from the Metropolitan Police immediately and Jaffer would have been sacked too, had he not already quit the force.

dpa/NAN.