The sister of the footballer Emiliano Sala has described a CCTV company director and her employee as “wicked and evil” after they illegally accessed images of his postmortem.
Romina Sala said her family was devastated after images of her brother’s body were leaked on Instagram just days after being recovered from the Channel after a plane crash.
On Friday, a victim impact statement from Romina was read to Swindon crown court where Sherry Bray, 49, and her employee Christopher Ashford, 62, were being sentenced for accessing the footage.
Romina said: “I have seen photos of Emiliano’s body leaked on Instagram, and I cannot believe there are people so wicked and evil who could do that.
“I phoned Emiliano’s agent and told him what was circulating on the internet. I called our brother, Dario, and he did not want to see the photos. I tried to keep images off social networks. My mother could not see those horrible photos. I was sad as people were making jokes about it.
“I’ll never erase the images from my head. My brother and mother can never forget about this. It’s hard for me to live with this image.”
Sala, 28, had just signed for Cardiff City when the plane he was travelling in crashed into the Channel, north of Guernsey, on 21 January. His body was recovered on 6 February and a postmortem took place at Bournemouth borough mortuary the following day.
Bray, of Corsham in Wiltshire, and Ashford, of Calne in Wiltshire,admitted three counts of computer misuse when they appeared at Swindon crown court in August.
Their company, based in Chippenham, Wiltshire, held the out-of-hours contract to monitor the mortuary cameras.
They will be sentenced on Monday.
