A police officer watched bodycam footage believed to show the head teacher of Epsom College and her family after they were shot dead.
The bodies of head teacher Emma Pattison, 45, and her daughter Lettie, 7, were found in the grounds of the prestigious school on Feb 5 2023.
Mrs Pattison’s husband, George Pattison, 39, is believed to have shot them both before killing himself.
Officer Baseer Ahmed viewed at least part of footage linked to a case that “generated a significant amount of local and national interest”, a misconduct panel ruled.
Surrey Police has not confirmed which specific footage was viewed but the date matches when officers were called to Epsom College.
A hearing on July 1 this year found that Mr Ahmed accessed the footage of the “serious incident in East Surrey” on Feb 7 2023 while his boss, Ch Supt Budd, was on annual leave. Mr Ahmed insisted he did not watch it in its entirety. He is now banned from policing.
He told the panel that he had accessed the footage for “a legitimate policing purpose and in carrying out his role as a staff officer” but it was found there was no reason for him to have watched the footage.
The misconduct panel judged that Mr Ahmed breached the standards of policing by accessing the footage, and concluded that he would have been dismissed for his gross misconduct had he not already left the force in Dec 2023.
Clare Harrington, head of the panel, said: “Mr Ahmed accessed the body-worn footage without a policing purpose, contrary to the relevant policies and without specific instructions to do so.
“It is important to remember the high standards that members of the public rightly expect police officers to adhere to, the extremely difficult circumstances being faced by family members in this particular case and the likely effect that unnecessary viewing of the footage would have on them.
”[Mr Ahmed] made the decision to access the footage, thereby failing to maintain the highest standards of behaviour expected of him.
“The context of the misconduct was a very distressing and high-profile case which was known to Mr Ahmed to be the focus of much public attention and scrutiny.
“Following careful consideration, the panel is satisfied on balance that if Mr Ahmed had remained a serving officer, he would have been dismissed for the misconduct as we have found it.”
‘Unacceptable breach of trust’
Following the panel’s decision, Supt Andy Rundle, Surrey Police’s head of professional standards, said Mr Ahmed’s behaviour was “not acceptable”.
“The public rightly expects that police officers behave at all times with integrity and respect,” he said.
“Ex-officer Ahmed breached this trust when he looked at body-worn footage of a crime scene, despite having no policing purpose. This behaviour is not acceptable, and a thorough professional standards investigation was launched.
“At his misconduct hearing the chair conducting the proceedings found that the allegation did breach the standards of professional behaviour at a level of gross misconduct and had he still been a serving officer, he would have been dismissed.
“He will also be placed on the College of Policing barred list. We are supportive of the hearing’s decision and hope that it demonstrates how seriously we take misconduct issues as a force.
“Thankfully, the majority of our officers and staff come to work each day to protect the public and abide by the standards of professional behaviour.”
An inquest into the Epsom College deaths is due to take place on Tuesday.
It is not the first time police have come under fire for the misuse of bodycam footage at crime scenes.
A Nottinghamshire Police Special Constable was dismissed after he viewed body-worn video footage of Nottingham attack victims Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber. Paranoid schizophrenic Valdo Calocane killed the pair in the early hours of June 13 2023.
The force launched multiple misconduct cases against officers related to the case.
An investigation found that 11 members of staff had viewed material relating to the case who did not have a legitimate reason to do so.
Officers also shared WhatsApp messages describing how the two university students, who were stabbed to death after a night out, were “proper butchered”.
Dr Sanjoy Kumar, Grace’s grieving father, told The Telegraph at the time that the messages “were as barbaric as the crime itself”.
Earlier this year, Cameron Hanson, a 33-year-old officer with Lancashire Police, and Kirstie Hanson, his police colleague wife who was also 33, were jailed after they shared video footage taken at a murder scene.
Hanson attended an address in Oct 2021 and found the body of 45-year-old James O’Hara. He recorded the discovery on his body-worn video, but later sent his wife audio messages about the incident and used his personal phone to take videos of Mr O’Hara.
Hanson and Kirstie Hanson were jailed for 32 and 18 months respectively.
Earlier this month the mother of two murdered sisters revealed that she attempted suicide after two Metropolitan Police officers who photographed their bodies and shared them via WhatsApp were released from prison.
Mina Smallman’s daughters Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, were killed by Danyal Hussein while they were having a picnic in a park in Wembley in June 2020.
Deniz Jaffer, 49, and Jamie Lewis, 34, were both jailed after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office, but later appealed and were released early.
Ms Smallman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that their early release led her to attempt suicide, saying: “I knew they were coming out [of prison] but the whole trauma of their journey and the effect of when they appealed and applied to go to an open prison … The journey kept going back, forward, back, forward.”
“I thought: ‘You know what I don’t want to be here. Actually I have had enough, I have had enough of everything.’ And yeah, I attempted suicide.”
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