The employee said co-workers at the Medical Examiner's Office frequently broke rules to access computer files and obtain confidential autopsy reports relating to high profile cases, seemingly to entertain themselves. A spokesman for the Office denied the claim.

Among the photographs taken as part of autopsies said by the unnamed whistleblower to have been viewed were those of Hoffman, the actor who died of a heroin overdose in February, and Scott, the fashion designer girlfriend of Rolling Stone Sir Mick Jagger. She took her own life in March.

The source told the New York Post that senior officials took steps to tighten computer security amid fears that unauthorised staff were accessing reports, but that employees found it easy to get around the new safeguards.

“Too many people have access to the files — crime scene photos, autopsy reports — and share it with coworkers,” the whistleblower said. “There’s a million holes.”

Julie Bolcer, a spokesman for the Medical Examiner's Office, said: “Only authorised employees who use our systems for their daily casework have access. There are extensive security measures in place.”

The Medical Examiner’s Office attends the scene of all violent or unexplained deaths in the city.

Hoffman, 46, an Academy Award winner was discovered unconscious at his Manhattan apartment with drug paraphernalia around him. Last week it emerged that he had left his entire $35 million (£21 million) fortune to his common-law-wife Mimi O'Donnell because he did not want their children to become “trust fund kids”.

Scott, 49, was found hanged by a scarf in her apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea district by her assistant. Jagger has said he was “devastated” by her death.

New York's Medical Examiner's Office is the largest in the United States and has pioneered advancements in complex forensic investigation.

It developed many new techniques while working to identify those lost at the World Trade Center on 9/11, eventually gathering more than 10,000 bone and body fragments.

The Telegraph, London