Met Police officers routinely took photos of dead bodies on their personal phones: ‘Common practice’

Metropolitan Police officers routinely used personal mobile phones to collect evidence, including images of dead people, a misconduct hearing has found. An internal Scotland Yard investigation heard officers defended the practice by arguing that the quality of photography on standard police equipment was poor.

Investigators were told officers frequently shared these sensitive images via WhatsApp as a ‘workaround’ to compress the files before uploading them to the Met’s official system.

Following an investigation, it was revealed that PC Billy Manning had kept a photograph of a deceased elderly man on his personal device. He later showed ‘something bad’ to his colleagues during a training session, leaving his fellow officers ‘uncomfortable’.

Manning’s arrest and subsequent investigation revealed serious confusion even among the Met’s senior managers about the appropriate use of personal phones for police duties.

The misconduct hearing heard that in September 2021 Pc Manning and Pc Zak Malik were called into assisted accommodation for elderly people in Dalston, east London.

Officers found a resident who had died “a few days or weeks ago” and whose body was in poor condition.

Pc Malik took the photo of the dead man with his personal phone before sending it to Pc Manning via WhatsApp.

The hearing was told that the files were sent to reduce file size so they could be uploaded to the Met system and sent to the coroner.

Pc Manning deleted the photo from his iPhone library but not from his WhatsApp thread.

The panel heard Pc Malik noticed the photo was still on WhatsApp and alerted Pc Manning, who responded with three smiley face emojis.

The inquest heard Pc Manning discussed “difficult situations” with other officers at a shock training course at Shoreditch police station the following year.

He decided to show them the photo of the dead man and said, “I went to a bad place, I’ll show you his picture.”

The hearing was told two of the officers “felt very uncomfortable” and reported him to their superiors.

Pc Manning was arrested and claimed it was “common practice”.

His mobile phone was seized and its contents were downloaded; The analysis revealed a number of other images “related to victims, suspects and evidence”.

It was also revealed that he was the creator of a WhatsApp group called “Days Outside” which contained sexist, homophobic, ableist and transphobic content.

Another officer told the hearing he attended a separate sudden death call with PC Manning and that photographs were also taken on his personal phones but could not remember who took the photographs.

Criminal charges were not pursued but the investigation led to misconduct charges being laid against Pc Manning and a second officer in the group, Pc Frankie Jordan, who also withheld photographs of the evidence.

Pc Jordan told investigators he “did not believe he had done anything wrong” and that “he and his colleagues regularly took photographs of the evidence on their personal mobile phones and sent them to colleagues via WhatsApp”.

Pc Jordan said he and his colleagues were not allocated mobile phones for work purposes and the tablets police issued were “substandard”.

He denied the images were deliberately stored on his phone, saying he “forgot they were there”.

As the issue emerged, senior officers warned that the use of personal mobile phones for policing purposes was not in line with accepted policy.

But after the briefing, other officers came forward to report that they were doing the same thing.

The issue was discussed at a senior leadership team meeting in February 2022, where it was decided that personal phones should never be used for policing purposes.

But the misconduct panel heard evidence of “confused and contradictory guidelines” that were interpreted differently even within the Met’s senior leadership team.

Following a public misconduct hearing held between November 2025 and February 2026, Pc Manning was given a final written warning for a period of two years and Pc Jordan was given a final warning for three years.

The Met Police have been approached for comment.