Firefighters at the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire Service in England have been accused of photographing ‘dead bodies of women in car accidents’, prompting a police investigation.
In an interview with ITV News, a female firefighter has alleged that the photographs of the dead women were shared on a WhatsApp group in which male firefighters made degrading comments about the victims, including about ‘the type of underwear the women are wearing in the car crash’.
‘There’s explicit pictures, there’s photos of accidents, sometimes you can even see the dead body in the accident,’ the interviewee said.
‘Retrieving the body of someone dead should tear you apart, not make you want to take photos of it, just to joke about it later because that’s someone’s loved one, isn’t it? That’s someone’s relative.’
Ben Ansell, chief fire officer of the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue, said in a statement that the service had commissioned an independent investigation into the allegations.
[Photo: Alamy]
‘We are extremely shocked and appalled to hear about these allegations,’ Ansell said.
‘There is an expectation for our staff to work in line with our code of ethics which sets out high levels of expected behaviour. The vast majority of our staff are good people, working hard and doing a great job. But when and if those standards are not met, we will move quickly to address it.’