A former police officer lay down and took selfies while on duty at the scene where a teenager had been killed, a court has heard.
Ryan Connolly, 41, then a serving officer with Merseyside Police, was on duty at the cordon of the scene where 16-year-old Daniel Gee-Jamieson was killed in Belle Vale, Liverpool, in 2018, when he took photos of himself in the area, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Opening his trial on Tuesday, Peter Wilson, prosecuting, told the jury: “Instead of guarding the scene, he has laid down and taken a selfie. You may think what is the purpose of that.”
The jury was shown the pictures, found on Connolly’s phone, which included one selfie showing the officer standing up in his police uniform and another of him lying on the grass.
The court heard nothing sensitive could be seen in the images, which also included pictures of police tape at the scene.
The former constable of Huyton, Merseyside, denies four charges of misconduct in a public office.
Mr Wilson said Connolly was arrested in February 2020, and when his mobile phones were seized, a number of photographs were recovered from the sent folder of the messaging app WhatsApp.
He said: “The images are mainly of members of the public who are clearly being dealt with by Merseyside Police.
“They also include pictures of other police officers on duty or even selfies of the defendant himself whilst he is on patrol guarding a murder scene.”
Twenty-four photos found on devices showed people who were detained at police stations, hospitals or mental health premises.
The jury heard some photos showed members of the public as they lay on hospital beds, were receiving treatment or were in handcuffs.
One image showed a missing child after he was found and taken to a police station, and another showed two people who appeared to be asleep in bed, the court heard.
In a statement read to the court, one woman, shown hiding in a cupboard in a photo, said she found it “degrading and upsetting”.
Connolly is also accused of taking pictures containing details of force systems, suspect images and police incident logs.
Five photographs of his colleagues were also found on his phone.
Mr Wilson said: “The prosecution says he has wilfully misconducted himself by taking inappropriate photographs where, we say, there is no professional need to do so. He’s then retained them and sent them on.”
He said Connolly’s actions had crossed the threshold and amounted to an abuse of the public’s trust in the police.
Mr Wilson said the defendant claimed the images, on his personal mobile phone, were taken for work purposes, but the court heard they had not been uploaded to police systems.
The trial is expected to last four to five days.
