LONDON: LONDON: Embattled Metropolitan Police boss Dame Cressida Dick has come under further criticism during a public inquiry into the death of an unarmed man who was shot dead during a foiled prison break.
Jermaine Baker died when he was shot by a Met marksman known only as W80 near Wood Green Crown Court on December 11, 2015.
The public inquiry into his death, which started on Monday, has heard that he may have been asleep at the time he was shot, and that no live firearm was found in the car in which he was front seat passenger, but a replica Uzi was discovered in the back of the car.
Officers had intelligence that the group, who aimed to free Izzet Eren from a prison van as he was being taken to the court, had been unable to obtain a real gun, but this information was not passed on to firearms officers who confronted the men.
Phillippa Kaufmann QC, representing Baker’s family, told the inquiry on Wednesday that his relatives are furious that W80 is working in a firearms training role. The marksman is currently locked in a High Court battle to try to avoid disciplinary proceedings over the shooting. Ms Kaufmann said: “They are incensed that the gross misconduct proceedings against W80 have become mired in litigation. Litigation instituted by W80 but entirely supported by the Commissioner.
“And incensed that W80 … is currently discharging a firearms training role, a role in which he is called upon to mentor and educate future generations of MPS firearms officers.
“In these respects the Commissioner has demonstrated to the family that she is not at all interested in holding her officers to account, either to their code of ethics or to the rule of law. She is unwilling and incapable of challenging the culture of institutional defensiveness and impunity that has pervaded firearms policing for decades.”
She added: “As importantly as the duty of the inquiry itself to act without fear or favour, the family look to the Commissioner, to her own responsibility for Jermaine’s death, and her personal responsibility to affect change.”
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