A disgraced police officer who was jailed for taking photos of two murdered women claimed to friends that he covered up an assault on a group of Asian men.
Deniz Jaffer, 47, who used racist slurs to describe the men, said in a WhatsApp group that the attackers were released after chatting with them “off the record”.
He said the incident involved three “white fellas” arrested for assault at a football protest, an Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) report published on Friday said.
Jaffer’s comments were made just days after the Metropolitan police officer and his colleague Jamie Lewis, 33, took photos of the murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman while protecting a crime scene in Fryent Country Park, north London, in June 2020.
The watchdog’s investigation found Jaffer’s conduct in relation to the alleged cover-up “indicates a corrupt attitude within policing that specifically targets people from the south Asian community”.
Jaffer tried to dismiss the messages as “chit chat” and an attempt to be “funny”, despite the fact a Met investigation had concluded the assault on the Asian men did not happen.
The IOPC report said: “The sentiment expressed by PC Jaffer is likely to bring discredit on the police service and undermine public confidence in policing, especially but not limited to, members of the south Asian community. Concerning is PC Jaffer’s reference to this as ‘chit chat’ and ‘gossip’.”
Jaffer told investigators he was not racist and had only used the racist language because one of his friends had also used it in the past.
While the incident was unrelated to the murders of Henry and Smallman, the claims came to light during a forensic examination of his phone after the investigation into his behaviour at the crime scene.
Jaffer’s colleague Lewis initially told police he was “95% certain” he had not taken pictures of himself next to the bloodied bodies of the two sisters, the report found. However, it was later discovered that he had taken at least two photos, while Jaffer took four pictures of the bodies at the crime scene.
The sentencing judge Mark Lucraft said the officers “dehumanised” the two black murder victims “for their own amusement” by taking and sharing photos from the scene. He jailed them for two years and nine months.
The Old Bailey in London heard they took photos, some showing the bodies, and shared them in two WhatsApp groups, calling the victims “dead birds”.
One group, said to have been called the A team, contained 41 police officers. The other contained friends of Jaffer and was named “Covid cunts”.
Three serving Met officers were given written warnings last month for failing to challenge or report the inappropriate photographs.
Scotland Yard said it had implemented the recommendations made by the IOPC regarding officers’ behaviour, adding that the force had made “significant changes”.
The Press Association contributed to this report.
