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?

Given your name and your OP, its not a strange comment.

Why not post purely about Noah?

'The story' as you put it is not irrelevant. All these cases involve the Police Service of Northern Ireland. People are allowed to care about more than one person or thing, you know, even if those things are unconnected, but in this case they are.

Firstly the police in NI operate in a very different way to the rest of the uk .

This undermines the majority of good police officers who are out there - me being one . I'm a 50 year old woman , and I've put my life on the line more than once for the public .
I am proud of the job I do and I'm proud to say I serve the public and the queen even when I'm jaded at times with tales like this .

If found to be proven those officers need dealing with . But there are literally thousands of good decent police officers out there who run toward danger to protect the general public and do it well .

Police are made up of the society they police - yes some bad apples and they need weeding out and dealing with - but the vast majority of my colleagues are people I'm proud of and who do a good job .

Sensationalist headlines don't help . I worked right through lockdown, we haven't had a real pay rise in years . I have never encountered so much violence than during lockdown, people - the public - were drinking more , arguing more , getting more violent and 6 of my shift were seriously assaulted on duty , one sustained a broken leg , one a broken jaw , one was beaten and left for dead at 3am in the middle of a road .
Police officers are assaulted daily and yet this never makes the news unless they're killed .

Please don't tar all officers with the same brush .
And like everyone else in the uk - innocent till proven guilty.

Could be an accident, I accidentally double tapped my screen and my vote changed from YANBU to YABU, I could have easily missed it if I’d have started scrolling.

Sadly the police in NI have always been corrupt. Even before reading this post I’ve thought what happened to poor Noah has something to do with the NI police or that they have ignored or covered something up.

I do post elsewhere on Mumsnet purely about Noah. I saw no need to change my name to post about something else important and also connected to Noah's case by a common police service and city. It is a strange comment in the context of the posters previous posts and because my OP is clearly about more than Noah.

It would be good if we could focus on the three cases in my OP and other important related issues if you would like to comment on that, rather than all this whataboutery.

"with the lazy, corrupt, incompetent, racist and bigoted PSNI?"
That's a very strong statement and doesn't represent the police force I'm familiar with.

Whoever gave the location of Noah's body surely is aware of who has put the poor child's body there.

Why isn't the UK parliament sorting out their employees and questioning their motives for the lack of resources and lack of care towards evidence.

Leaving a missing child's bike in the rain after reports of him being chased naked and not gathering any forensics from his belongings.

You couldn't make it up.

The investigation was minimised from the beginning, a young mix race Catholic boy, why would they care.

The racism in certain areas of NI is tragic.

stillvicarinatutu
I'm in a similar boat to you and echo your comments.

My question would be - how do we improve? How do we safeguard corrupt people from getting into the service in the first place? I don't think it will be a simple case of vetting, as people such as psychopaths will know how to get through that.

"with the lazy, corrupt, incompetent, racist and bigoted PSNI?"

That's a very strong statement and doesn't represent the police force I'm familiar with.

Wow sympathisers are out.

Have you read the evidence in the OP regarding the actions of the PSNI?

EmeraldShamrock1
Its a difficult thing forensics - not everything will hold forensic material and if something has been open to the public or been in a public place, your forensics are out the window as the continuity has gone.

Whoever gave the location of Noah's body might have only found him in that location - they may not be aware of who put him there.

@stillvicarinatutu You're a very brave person.
The level of violence towards people on the frontline has increased rapidly.

Of course there are great police officers unfortunately in NI the cultural power pull dominates the force.

I just find it hard to believe in Noah's case that these officers were so incompetent to destroy evidence without any malice intended.

Its a difficult thing forensics - not everything will hold forensic material and if something has been open to the public or been in a public place, your forensics are out the window as the continuity has gone.

They didn't check, they left his bike outside the police shed in the rain, they didn't secure his personal belongings and refused searching after dark, the drug addicts found with his personal belongings weren't questioned while he was still missing.

Do you know where Noah's body was found? You don't stumble across a body hundreds of metres in a storm drain.

It is disgusting and there needs to be much harsher penalties for police officers or anybody else in the emergency services or who has access to bodies (mortuary etc.) who is caught doing this.

What we hear about is the tip of the iceberg, it’s much more common than people realise. It comes up every so often about police officers sharing images of a crash scene or something but this is even worse. Moving and posing a body, removing clothes as if it’s a big joke. That poor family, those officers must have no shame. What if that was their child?

Nor did they test the water of his stomach to confirm whether he died in the drain or was drowned in a property close by as rumours suggest.

I've no idea .
The process for me to get in was around 7 hoops to
Hump
And an 18 month wait to find out .

Vetting is a tool but never goi g to stop the minority of bad officers .
Some are bad , some incompetent. Most are wonderful human beings who want to help protect people , detect crime and yet that's rapidly becoming unreachable for the majority of officers - lack of resources , too many Incidents.
Today on my district there were over 100 incidents created for a handful of cops . We're sinking .

I have no idea why I don't have voting rights but as a police pensioner, I am disgusted. I thought the police lost an awful lot of the little goodwill they had during lockdown. I realise the NI incidents pre-date this, but stuff continually comes to light. I despair. And this is why I don't tell people my work history, until I have known people a long time, and they decide if they like me or not first, and not hate me instantly

Absolutely chilling, but sadly not surprising.
Orange gonna orange.

One thing I will say tho - for a potential murder it should be Cid investigating . Why was this little boys disappearance treated as a murder in the first instance ? I'm confused?

Sorry NOT treated as a murder in the first instance ?

Any suspicious death here is treated as a murder first and negated later ? Or not ? What happened to this little boy ?

Why was this little boys disappearance treated as a murder in the first instance ? I'm confused?

He was a mixed race Catholic child chased into a Protestant estate known as a bolt hole for paramilitaries after been robbed by junkies.

Once there he was witnessed running naked through the streets on a summer evening at 6pm when most people in this area are sitting on a deck chair.

A good aul laugh.

The James English podcast gave his mother a platform as there was a media black out in NI.

Now the police are trying to use public protection immunity to seal the files.

Please sign the petition to prevent non disclosure of files.

Yes, they are strong words and I am very sorry to have to use them.

Then you are lucky. Luckier than the family of the person who had died by suicide, luckier than Noah, his mother, family and friends, luckier than the whistleblowing police officers in the BBC Spotlight film, luckier than young Flynn Maguire also from Noah's school, who was attacked, robbed and chased shortly before Noah but just managed to escape. Have you read and watched the links in my OP? Do you accept, understand or care that people have a different experience of the police to you? Do you take the trouble to try to find out about that? To try to change it? What if it was your loved one?

www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/north-belfast-teenager-badly-injured-18233518

www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2021/04/15/news/family-of-north-belfast-teenager-beaten-in-sectarian-attack-to-launch-legal-action-against-psni-2288935/

I personally think NI is sectarianism is getting worse.

Wow, I thought being described as a sympathiser was terminology long buried in the past. There are rigorous and expensive methods of examining police performance in NI and if they're not working then huge pressure should be applied.
. The behaviour of those police officers was utterly disgraceful and no-one has suggested otherwise.

Thank you for your post @SpongeBobJudgeyPants

Young Noah Donohoe actually disappeared on Sunday 21st June 2020 and died somewhere between then and Saturday 27th June, 2020. I cannot tell you the time nor even the date because the police (PSNI) have not established that, or if they have they have not told his mother.