Mina Smallman is no stranger to death. As a priest she has comforted families as they navigate the trauma of grief.
She too knows what it is like to lose someone close to her.
Her father died when she was 16, her mother passed away a decade ago. She lost her brother in 2014 from cardiomyopathy and her sister last year to cancer.
Thankfully, she had her faith. But even that was to be tested by the horror which was about to descend.
Her daughters, Nicole Smallman, 27, and Bibaa Henry, 46, went to a park in North London to celebrate Bibaa’s birthday and never returned.
After the police failed to respond, the family mounted their own search and discovered their bodies.
They had been murdered by Danyal Hussein, 19, who went on a killing spree after signing a “pact with the demon” in his own blood.
Bibaa had been stabbed 12 times. Nicole, known as Nikki, had 38 stab wounds. But this was not the only torment Mina would have to endure.
Mina, 65, and her husband Chris, 64, pick their words carefully as they tell their story.
A few weeks after Nikki and Bibaa’s murder in June, 2020, the police returned.
Mina explains: “I was really anxious and Chris said, ‘Mina, what on earth could they possibly tell you that could be worse than what we are going through?’ And I said, ‘No, you’re right, the worst has already happened’.”
It hadn’t.
Two officers sent to guard the crime scene, PCs Deniz Jaffer and Jamie Lewis, had taken pictures of the bodies and shared them with colleagues on WhatsApp.
It is hard to comprehend the impact this “sacrilegious act” had on the grieving couple.
“Any reserves we had were cut off,” Mina says.
Jaffer and Lewis were each jailed for 33 months.
It would have been understandable if Mina and Chris had wanted to disappear from public view and seek a quiet life at home in Ramsgate, Kent.
rawness of grief know they are not alone but also because she is determined to change the “toxic” culture of the police.
She is honest about the toll the events have taken on her mental and physical health. She rattles off the conditions she has been diagnosed with: chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and post traumatic stress disorder.
In her lowest moments, she has contemplated taking her own life so she could “join her girls”. What prevented her was her love for Chris, a retired teacher, and her surviving daughter Monique.
Mina, the first black female archdeacon in the Church of England, admits events have tested her faith.
She notes that other priests have walked away from their calling after losing a child.
What sustained her was the kindness of others.
She says: “My mind was on their last moments.
“We knew they had been stabbed a lot but with poor little Nikki a lot of the wounds on her legs were defence wounds so she hadn’t died instantly.
“I know that her last moments were terrifying. She was terrified.”
This month, Jaffer and Lewis launched an appeal against their sentences.
“The appeal was a slap in the face,” she says.
Mina is also furious about the partying in Downing Street.
If Nicole and Bibaa had held their birthday party indoors they would still be alive.
She adds: “You can’t help saying ‘had they broken the [Covid] rules they wouldn’t have been there.’”
She has found it within herself to forgive Hussein – finding forgiveness for Jaffer and Lewis has proved more challenging.
“Something has gone wrong with the vetting and the police has become a safe haven for thugs,” she says.
Slowly, they are trying to adjust to a life permanently scarred by grief.
Mina adds: “We have talked about what happens when you go on holiday and meet people and they say, ‘Have you got children?’
“I said, ‘We’ll just say we’ve got three children but two were murdered.’ And Chris said, ‘That’s a bit harsh, why don’t we say we had three but two are no longer with us?’”