Lancashire Police officer and wife who shared video footage of dead body jailed

Cameron Hanson, 33, and Kirstie Hanson, 33, have been jailed for sharing footage of a dead body. Credit: Lancashire Police

A police constable and his wife have been jailed after they shared video footage of a dead body taken at a crime scene.

Cameron Lee Hanson, 33, was a serving officer at Lancashire Constabulary when he attended an address in October 2021 and found the body of 45-year-old James O'Hara.

Hanson recorded the crime scene in Barrowford on his body-worn camera, but minutes after he left he sent police civilian worker Kirstie Hanson, 33, audio messages about the incident and used his personal phone to take videos of Mr O'Hara.

The next morning Kirstie Hanson asked her colleague Charlotte Riley, 30, if she wanted 'to see the video from a murder', Manchester Crown Court heard. Riley replied: “Yeh, of course I do,” and Kirstie Hanson sent her the footage with the message: “Don’t show anyone that, I’ll get in sh**.”

Riley pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office and conspiracy to secure access to computer material.

Charlotte Riley was a police civilian worker. Credit: MEN Media

Two days later, Kirstie Hanson asked two other colleagues in Darwen Police Station if they wanted to see her husband's recording of the body.

The colleagues reported it to their superiors and an inquiry was launched. The investigation uncovered another incident in February 2021 in which Cameron Hanson was called to a sudden death and messaged his wife: "Just a potential murder."He took a photograph of the deceased whose body was covered by a coat and sent it Kirstie Hanson who replied: “Babyyy that’s creepy. I hope that’s not your coat.”Other misconduct included unauthorised access to police computer systems, disclosure of private and sensitive information, and 'mockery of vulnerable members of the public.Cameron Hanson, of Packington Brook, Oswaldtwistle, was jailed for 32 months, Kirstie Hanson, of the same address, was jailed for 18 months, and Riley, of Carholme Avenue, Burnley, received a 12-month sentence suspended for two years.

Michael Hannan, 32, was jailed at Preston Crown Court for five years and four months for the manslaughter of James O'Hara who he punched in an unprovoked stranger attack.

Mr O’Hara's mother Janice read out a victim personal statement from the witness box at Manchester Crown Court about the impact of Cameron Hanson’s actions.She said: “I can’t comprehend why anyone, let alone a serving police officer, could carry out such an atrocity.

"Jay was our son and a brother, a funny, charismatic character, a beautiful human being, who Pc Hanson and others have so cruelly and thoughtlessly degraded."They have stripped our son of the dignity he deserved in death, it dehumanised him, all for some morbid curiosity or some form of warped bragging rights.

"The profession requires personnel with honesty, integrity, compassion and respect, and Pc Hanson and his colleagues showed none of those values to us or to our son.

"They are a disgrace to the police force but more importantly a disgrace to humanity.”

An inquiry was launched after their colleagues reported it to their superiors. Credit: MEN Media

Judge Nicholas Dean KC, the Honorary Recorder of Manchester, told the defendants: ”This is a shocking and disturbing case.

"Shocking and disturbing for what it might tell us about the culture that appears to have existed for a period of time at least within Lancashire Police.

“It is hard to know how much more widespread this sort of activity was but it seems to me to be clear, in part because of the casual way you shared information, that this was not something that was necessarily unusual in your workplace.“You were all subjected to some rules. Rules relating to the obtaining and dissemination of information but above all rules of basic decency.

"You disregarded those formal rules and the rules of basic decency."

Lancashire Police said all three defendants resigned during the course of its investigation.

Patrick Cassidy, for Kirstie Hanson, said she was 'deeply ashamed' and had since undertaken a university course on law and ethics as a 'manifestation of her reflective state of mind in order to learn'.Patrick Williamson, defending Riley, said she too was ashamed and added: “Her family are frankly horrified and annoyed at her behaviour.”

Detective Chief Inspector Eugene Swift, of the force’s anti-corruption unit, said: “The behaviour of these three individuals has no place in Lancashire Constabulary and damages public confidence and trust in the police at both a local and national level."

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