Met Police warns two officers after dead body photos at crime scene

The Metropolitan Police has issued a written warning to two officers after they used personal phones to photograph dead bodies at a crime scene, and apologised to anyone affected. The sanction lands in a force already under pressure over whether its supervision, digital evidence handling and basic respect for the dead are strong enough to withstand the scrutiny that follows serious incidents.

The case echoes one of the most damaging misconduct scandals in recent Met history. Former officers Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis were jailed for two years and nine months each after taking and sharing photographs of the bodies of Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, in Fryent Country Park in Wembley after the sisters were stabbed to death in June 2020. The images were taken on personal phones and shared on WhatsApp, deepening the outrage around a scene that should have been treated with solemnity and discipline.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct said in that case that one officer took four photographs on his personal mobile phone while on cordon duty, while another superimposed his own face onto one of the images. In total, 13 officers were informed that their conduct was under investigation, a detail that exposed how quickly a single breach can spread through a policing team and become a wider failure of professional judgment.

For Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman’s family, the damage went far beyond the criminal courts. Their mother, Mina Smallman, said the Met’s apology felt like “a slap in the face”, a remark that captured the gulf between official language and the sense of violation felt by bereaved relatives. Danyal Hussein was later jailed for a minimum of 35 years for the murders.

The latest warning also revives wider questions about whether the Met has learned the right lessons from other high-profile failures. In June 2025, the force said the child-search case of Child Q had been “a catalyst for change” and acknowledged broader organisational failings, while also saying it had apologised to Child Q and her family. Together, these cases point to a pattern that goes beyond individual misconduct: they test whether the Met can enforce crime-scene discipline, protect vulnerable people and dead victims alike, and restore confidence in officers who are expected to handle the most sensitive scenes with restraint.