A former police officer from Colchester has been jailed for more than two years after taking crime scene photos of two murdered sisters.

Pc Jamie Lewis, from Colchester, and Pc Deniz Jaffer were assigned to guard the scene overnight after Ms Henry, 46, and Ms Smallman, 27, were found dead in bushes in Fryent Country Park, Wembley, north-west London.

Instead, they breached the cordon to take photographs of the bodies, which were then shared with colleagues and members of the public on WhatsApp.

One was a “selfie-style” image which included Lewis’s face superimposed on it.

The officers also described the victims as “dead birds” in WhatsApp groups.

Jaffer, 47, of Hornchurch, east London, and Lewis, 33, admitted misconduct in a public office.

On Monday, the pair appeared at the Old Bailey to be sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft QC.

Read more >> Police officers who took 'shameful' photos of double murder scene sacked

They have each been jailed for two years and nine months.

The court heard during the night, Jaffer took four pictures of the bodies in situ and Lewis took two, and superimposed his face on to one of them to create the “selfie-style” image.

On June 19 last year, the police watchdog received an anonymous “tip-off” about Lewis.

As a result of information he provided, Jaffer was also arrested three days later.

An examination of the officers’ phones revealed that the inappropriate images had been shared on WhatsApp.

The defendants were both members of a group called A Team, comprised of 41 Metropolitan Police officers.

Jaffer was also in another WhatsApp group of nine other people who were not in the force.

Shortly after arriving on the scene, Lewis posted to the A Team group an article about the discovery of the bodies, saying he and his colleagues were “living the Wembley dream”.

Lewis wrote: “Unfortunately I’m sat next to two dead birds full of stab wounds.”

Officers from the IOPC visited all the people who were sent the images, which were deleted, the court heard.

Analysis of Lewis’s phone showed that he had sent messages to a third WhatsApp group containing seven non-police members.

He revealed to the group that he was involved in a double murder investigation, wrongly saying the victims were aged 20 and 14 and one was pregnant.

Last month, a tribunal found the officers had committed gross misconduct.

Lewis was dismissed from the Metropolitan Police immediately and Jaffer would have been sacked too, had he not already quit the force.

In October, Danyal Hussein, 19, was jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years for the murders.

In victim impact statements, family members described the defendants as a “disgrace” to the police family and to mankind.

The women’s mother, Mina Smallman, said the officers’ actions were a “betrayal of catastrophic proportions” and a “sacrilegious act”.

Finding out that the men took selfies “for their own amusement” had left the family “horrified”, she said.

Mrs Smallman added: “Those police officers felt so safe, so untouchable, they felt they would take photos of our murdered daughters. Those officers dehumanised our children.

“If it had not been for an anonymous tip-off to the IOPC (Independent Office for Police Conduct) we would never have known.”

She added that the actions of the officers amounted to “pure misogyny”.