Met Police officers shared photos of dead bodies on WhatsApp using their personal phones – with accused PC saying it was ‘common practice’

Metropolitan Police officers shared photos of the bodies taken on their personal phones on WhatsApp after one of the defendants claimed it was a ‘common practice’.

Officers said personal phones were routinely used to capture evidence, including photographs of dead people, due to the poor quality of photography on standard police equipment.

Scotland Yard’s internal investigation heard secret footage was frequently shared via Whatsapp and the messaging app was used as a ‘workaround’ to compress files before emailing them and uploading them to the Met’s official system.

PC Billy Manning was revealed to have kept a photo of the deceased elderly man on his personal phone following an inquest into the man’s death.

He later showed what he described as the ‘bad’ image to colleagues during a training session, making them feel ‘uncomfortable’.

PC Manning’s arrest and subsequent investigation revealed widespread uncertainty, including among senior Met leaders, about whether it was appropriate for officers to use personal phones for police work.

A misconduct hearing heard that on September 27, 2021, PC Manning and PC Zak Malik were called to the assisted living home for older people in Dalston, east London.

There officers found a resident who had died ‘a few days or weeks ago’ and whose body was in an advanced stage of decomposition.

PC Malik took photographs of the dead man on his personal phone before sending them via WhatsApp to PC Manning’s iPhone.

The hearing was told the footage was sent to reduce the file size so it could be uploaded to the Met system and forwarded to the coroner.

PC Manning, who joined the Met in 2019 and has since been based at Stoke Newington police station, deleted the photo from his phone’s library but not from his WhatsApp thread.

The panel heard that when PC Malik later realized the photo was still on WhatsApp and alerted him, PC Manning responded with three smiley face emojis.

The following year, during a Taser training course held at Shoreditch police station, PC Manning was discussing ‘difficult situations’ with other officers during a break.

Then he showed them the photograph of the dead old man and said: ‘I went to a bad place, I will show you the picture.’

The inquest heard the man continued to describe the body in detail while holding the phone.

Two police officers said the incident made them feel “very uncomfortable” and encouraged them to report it to their superiors.

PC Manning was arrested on 18 February 2022.

He justified his actions by claiming that it was ‘common practice’ to take and delete photos with mobile phones, but this time he had forgotten to do so.

His mobile phone was seized and its contents were downloaded, revealing a series of further images ‘related to victims, suspects and evidence’.

The investigation also revealed that PC Manning had created a WhatsApp group called ‘Days Away’ where sexist, homophobic, ableist and transphobic content was shared.

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

No criminal charges were laid, but misconduct proceedings were brought against PC Manning and another 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”.

He said police officers are not issued mobile phones for work purposes and described standard police tablets as ‘substandard’.

PC Jordan denied the images were deliberately kept and said he “forgot they were there”.

As concerns grow, senior officers have warned that the use of personal mobile phones for policing purposes is not in line with accepted policy.

But the briefing encouraged other officers to report doing the same.

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.

Despite this, the misconduct panel heard evidence of ‘confusing and contradictory guidance’ that even senior Met leaders interpreted differently.

Following a hearing between last November and February this year, PC Manning was given a final written warning for two years and PC Jordan was given a final written warning for three years.

The Daily Mail has contacted the Metropolitan Police for comment.