Sala post-mortem CCTV footage pair given jail terms
A CCTV company director and her employee have been jailed for illegally accessing footage of footballer Emiliano Sala’s body in the mortuary.
Mr Sala, 28, had just signed for Cardiff City when the plane he was travelling in crashed into the English Channel on January 21.
His body was recovered on February 6 and a postmortem examination took place at Bournemouth Borough Mortuary the following day.
Sherry Bray, 49, the director of Camera Security Services Limited in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and her employee Christopher Ashford, 62, accessed footage of the procedure being conducted on Mr Sala.
Bray had sent a message to night worker Ashford before his shift, which said: “There’s a nice one on the table for you to watch when you’re next in.” Both replayed the clip during separate shifts before Bray took a picture of it on her mobile phone and sent it to her daughter on Facebook Messenger, leading to it being widely shared on social media, Swindon Crown Court heard.
After realising that police were investigating, Bray deleted the file from her phone and asked Ashford to do the same.
Bray, of Corsham, and Ashford, of Calne, each admitted three counts of computer misuse at Swindon Crown Court in August.
Bray also admitted perverting the course of justice by instructing Ashford to “delete your pics”, deleting the post-mortem cameras from the live feed camera facility and deleting the mortuary image of Mr Sala from her phone.
Judge Peter Crabtree jailed Bray for 14 months and Ashford for five months.