Police officers 'shared images of person who died by suicide' - Warning: graphic descriptions

[MNettersForNoahAndFiona]

Warning: graphic descriptions follow, in BBC News article and BBC video interview with the family:

Two NI police officers have been investigated for more than three years over allegations they manipulated a person who died by suicide's body and shared photos and a video online.

One of the officers has been suspended with full pay while the Police Ombudsman investigates. It is part of a wider investigation encompassing 11 separate but related incidents spanning several years. There are multiple suspects, including police officers and civilians, in Northern Ireland as well as in England. The investigation is looking at a range of possible offences including misconduct, harassment and the suspected supply of drugs.

The allegations around the two Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers are harrowing. The police officers asked the family to leave the room. The victim's body was moved around the room and posed for photographs and a video. His trousers were taken down and his genitalia exposed for one of the photographs. The images were then photoshopped with speech bubbles mocking the victim, including using a derogatory term for his religion and shared.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-62012268

The victim died in 2017 in Belfast. That is five years ago and still the police (PSNI) have not charged these sick and callous individuals. Only 30 hours of interviews have taken place in 5 years. When two disgraceful Met police officers similarly shared images of the bodies of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, they were quite rightly prosecuted and sent to prison - even by the Met.

The BBC recently broadcast interviews with two Police Service of Northern Ireland whistleblowers speaking publicly for the first time about serious allegations of misconduct and negligence within the PSNI:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017yyn

Some Mumsnetters will have also seen my threads and those of others about the death and disappearance of young Noah Donohoe, also in Belfast, in 2020. After he had been missing for 6 days, Noah's naked body was retrieved from a drain. Two years later, his mother Fiona is still having to fight for the truth about her son's death and for justice for him. It is the same police force: the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), and the same Chief Constable: Simon Byrne.
Here is a factual and reliable pinned Twitter thread for people new to Noah's story or wanting to know more:
mobile.twitter.com/MarymoBelfast/status/1370453351616425985
Here is Fiona's podcast:

Here is a Channel 4 News report: www.channel4.com/news/noah-donohoe-family-seek-answers-over-belfast-teenagers-death And please do sign Fiona's petition if you haven't already: www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4573833-noah-donohoe-his-mothers-fight-for-the-truth-and-justice-please-help-stop-the-police-coroner-and-brandon-lewis-from-keeping-investigation-files-into-the-death-of-a-child-secret-thread-3?

These are only three examples of many serious failings from the PSNI. Victims' families have lost trust in them. Decent, whistleblowing officers have lost trust in them. The Metropolitan Police have recently been put into special measures for their failings. AIBU to believe that the same must happen with the lazy, corrupt, incompetent, racist and bigoted PSNI?

YANBU @MNettersForNoahAndFiona. What those police officers was disgusting, degrading and calculated. WTF is wrong with the police in the UK? They're a disgrace. How can we possibly trust them?

Apparently two voters already think we can, @TooBigForMyBoots ?!

I can't see how anyone thinks yabu.

What world are we living in where we can not trust the police.

There are some blindly subservient fuckwits on this site.🤬

What was done to the lad who took his life really puts a horrible new angle on the Noah Donohoe case doesn't it :(

Or they have a similar mindset themselves if they are voting I'm BU.

😔 utterly shameful that we tell our kids to trust the police, find a policeman etc.. and this is the type of thing they're doing.

I'd love whoever voted that you were unreasonable to come and explain why.

calculated.
Exactly. They told the family to leave the room so that they could seal it.

How can we possibly trust them?
We can't - even on the evidence of 'only' these three cases, because they are serious and because there are many more.

What world are we living in where we can not trust the police.
Sadly, this world and in 2022.

It's depressing but it seems like this is suddenly an issue because the police are targeting white people. Black people have known about this for about 60 years.

What was done to the lad who took his life really puts a horrible new angle on the Noah Donohoe case doesn't it :(
It does and in so many ways as well as the obvious. Some people think that the police wouldn't possibly fail to properly try to find a missing child, especially when that child had been seen running naked, exhausted and distressed in a residential street in an area unknown to him, and then especially after his naked body was found six days later in a drain. But the police did not do all they could - huge understatement - to try to find him and they have not done all they can in the two years since to investigate his disappearance and death. Noah was a bi-racial, Catholic child. Incompetence? Collusion? Racism? Bigotry? Protection of informers, paramilitaries, intelligence officers or their own colleagues, friends or family members? Sheer laziness? You decide. Now they have applied to keep 4 files/500 pages from their investigation secret.

Noah Donohoe was not a white person, @MrsTerryPratchett

Awful pattern of behaviour… hopefully there will be changes at the top.

What kind of freaks are the Police employing ??

I do not know about the person who died by suicide because his identity and that of his family are not given.

I’m in a point in my life that when I hear/read horrible things that have been done, all I can think is: ”Yep, sounds like a man”.

I’ve just gone so numb now what men do.

But YANBU.
How awful and horrible.

Is the thread just about Noah?

I'm not critisising you BTW. I'm just saying that 'police officers aren't trustworthy' isn't news.

MrsTP, I know your general point and I don't disagree with you - but it's important to note the sectarian angle in this article and note that it involves the PSNI, i.e. you need to view this story in the Northern Irish context.

Absolutely. And I plead a little ignorance. I used to keep up to date with NI but not recently.

To hugely generalise in both locations, Catholics in NI would feel similarly about the police as Black people in, say, London. View this story in that light and you won't go far wrong.

This particular issue has existed in Ireland for generations.

Sick scummy bastards. They should be in prison.

😔 utterly shameful that we tell our kids to trust the police, find a policeman etc.. and this is the type of thing they're doing.
As a parent, I feel this very strongly. So many examples as well as those in my OP. Similar examples in England would be Stephen Lawrence and Sarah Everard. That feeling of not being able to trust the police with our children, black people, women or any vulnerable person really, either that they will be safe with the police or that a crime against them or an incident with them will be properly investigated. Having to tell our children that and know that ourselves.

but it's important to note the sectarian angle in this article and note that it involves the PSNI, i.e. you need to view this story in the Northern Irish context

exactly.
Suspended on full pay since 2017! Unbelievable.

I heard this on the local news before bed last night, it's just horrific.