London police say officers who shared pics of dead sisters guilty of 'shameful' misconduct

Nov. 24 (UPI) -- London's Metropolitan Police Department said Wednesday that a review has found that two former officers were guilty of gross misconduct for sharing photographs of the bodies of two women who were killed last year.

The department said officers Jamie Lewis and Deniz Jaffer shared the photos on social media and referred to the victims -- two sisters who were killed in a London park -- as "dead birds."

The officers pleaded guilty to misconduct during a criminal trial and a tribunal by Scotland Yard on Wednesday upheld the court's finding. The court determined that the officers posted several photos of the bodies of the sisters -- Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27 -- after they were assigned to patrol the crime scene in June 2020.

The department said Lewis would be fired immediately. Jaffer quit the police force in August. They will be sentenced next month on the misconduct charge.

The trial judge told Lewis and Jaffer that it's likely they will receive custodial sentences, which means mandatory time in prison or some other correctional facility.

"The behavior of [officers] Lewis and Jaffer that day was shameful and fell very far below the standards we expect of all our officers," Assistant Met Commissioner Helen Ball said in a statement Wednesday.

"We do not want officers who act in such an unprofessional and disrespectful manner to be part of the Metropolitan Police Service.

"We deeply regret the additional distress this matter has caused them. I am profoundly sorry, both personally and on behalf of the Met."

The man who killed the women, 19-year-old Danyal Hussein, was convicted and received two concurrent 35-year jail sentences. Officials said Hussein killed the sisters out of a deep obsession with Satanism.