I haven’t forgiven Metropolitan Police officers who photographed their dead daughters, says mother | Police

Mina Smallman, the mother of two women murdered in a London park, has forgiven their killers but not the two Metropolitan Police officers who took and shared photos of their bodies, she has said.

Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were reported missing on June 6, 2020, the day before friends discovered their bodies in a park in Wembley, north London, after organising their own search party.

Police officers Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis were ordered to monitor the scene. At the scene, they took photos, some of which showed the bodies, and shared them in two WhatsApp groups, calling the victims “dead birds”. They were both jailed for two years and nine months in 2021.

Smallman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she had forgiven her daughter’s killer, Danyal Hussein, but not Jaffer and Lewis.

Hussein, who was 18 when he murdered Henry and Smallman, was sentenced to two concurrent 35-year prison terms in 2021.

“It was only after the trial, [the BBC journalist] Mishal Husain interviewed me and said, ‘Do you forgive the killer? Have you forgiven the killer?’ After a quick soul-searching, I found nothing,” she said on Saturday.

“My husband is the most peaceful, loving, calm person you could ever imagine. He hasn’t forgiven her. He feels total rage.”

Speaking about the officer’s actions, Smallman said: “Clearly what they did was not as serious as murder.

“But you’re telling me that you’ve violated our daughters even more by doing that. I haven’t forgiven them.”

Smallman said that when the two former officers were released from prison, she attempted suicide.

“I knew they were coming out of prison, but the whole trauma of their journey – the aftermath of their appeal, their request to go to an open prison – I was like, ‘Oh, you know what, I don’t want to be here. I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of everything. And yes, I attempted suicide,’” she said.

She said she no longer has suicidal thoughts. “God will not let me go. This is not the way I have to go. When the time is right, it will be the time.”

Smallman, who has become a women’s safety campaigner, said she still has confidence in the police despite the actions of Jaffer and Lewis.

“It’s something that people don’t necessarily understand. The majority of police officers are good people. I get invited all over the country by different police forces to come and talk to them about my experience,” she said.

“This is what I do and I realize that it keeps me alive. I am truly honored to meet the parents and women’s groups that support victims, survivors of male assault. The response I get after speaking out warms my heart because I think I’m not just doing this for me. I’m doing it for them.”

Smallman is in touch with the families of other women murdered by men, including Sarah Everard’s mother Susan. “When I talk to these mothers, they are so broken, so broken, and they are grateful to me because they know I am talking about all of us,” she said.

This month, Carol Hunt, 61, and two of her daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were found injured in their home in Bushey, Hertfordshire, and died shortly afterwards. Kyle Clifford was arrested a day later on suspicion of murder. “The first day I heard about it, it reminds me of the day I was told they had been killed. [her daughters] “We are dead and I am grieving again. I grieve for us and I grieve for the family.”

• In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on the freephone number 116 123 or by email at jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat at 988lifeline.org or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the Lifeline crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.