Two London officers get prison for photos of slain sisters

LONDON (AP) — Two London police officers who took pictures of two slain sisters and posted them on social media have been jailed for two years and nine months each for what a judge described as “inexplicable conduct.’’

Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis had been assigned to guard the site where the bodies of Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, were found in the bushes at Fryent Country Park in northwest London.

In one selfie-style image, Lewis super-imposed his face on the body of one of the victims. He also referred to the victims as “dead birds’’ in a message to a WhatsApp group that included 41 London police officers. Lewis and Jaffer both pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office.

“It is appalling and inexplicable conduct,’’ Judge Mark Lucraft said. “Here, the two of you not only violated the police cordon with the effect that had on the scene and on the investigation, but then wholly disregarded the privacy of the two victims of horrific violence and their families for what can only have been some cheap thrill, kudos, a kick or some form of bragging right by taking images and then passing them to others.”

A 19-year-old British man obsessed with demons has been sentenced to at least 35 years in prison for murdering the sisters in June 2020 in the the belief that the killings would help him win a lottery jackpot.

The women’s mother, Mina Smallman, said the officers’ actions were a “betrayal of catastrophic proportions.”

“Jaffer and Lewis callously and without any regard for our dead girls’ bodies committed, to my mind, a sacrilegious act,’’ she said. “We were horrified. I had never heard of anything so macabre.”