One of the things that they will be finding out is that lawyers are very expensive. When public enquiries come round it's time for the legal profession to get their front feet in the trough.

But the intelligence was quite obviously correct, so I don't see why there is a need to establish how the Police get their information.

Well they could protect the source I suppose, his evidence could be attributed to a pseudonym or given anonymously.

I just don't really understand what anyone would gain from it.

And then he won't be able to pass on any more intelligence so no more nice promising young footballers driving round in cars full of drugs and guns will get shot.

As an example

If 4 people know a particular peice of information, which eventually falls into police hands resulting in 1 of the 4 being shot by the police and the other two jailed. It doesn't take much to work out who supplied the police with the info.

A pseudonym or anonimity is not going to help there.

I see your point.

The intelligence, was clearly enough for the Police to consider the occupants of the vehicle a threat, an armed threat.

In that, they were correct I suppose.

I read this as the police officers with the guns being told that there is 'information' that the occupants of the vehicle are armed. There is no objective evidence to confirm this.

Police stop car. Police, not having seen any of the occupants of the car holding any weapons or any weapons being visible in the car shoot occupant(s).

Justification for doing so is that the police officer(s) thought occupant was 'going for a gun'. Notwithstanding that the police had no objective evidence that there was a gun to go for.

Having killed occupant(s) police recover weapons from vehicle. The fact that these were bad people will popularly be seen as justification for their death(s).

If the occupants of the vehicle had not been armed and the 'information' was incorrect the police would have killed someone who was 'innocent'.


This process puts innocent people at risk of being shot regardless of the populist justification of shooting criminals.


That is why an inquiry is important to me. We need to avoid the following scenario that puts the lives of the public at risk.


Police Officer 'A" has information that 'C" is armed and dangerous. 'A' tells Police Officer 'B' that 'C' is armed and dangerous. Police Officer 'B' arms himself and with the 'information' from 'A' attempts an arrest of 'C'.

'B' fails to establish for himself whether or not 'C' is armed. He acts as if 'C' must be (because he has been told he is) and shoots him simply because he may have been going for a gun.

'A' defends himself by having merely passed information to 'B'.

'B' defends himself by saying that the information made him genuinely believe that 'C' was armed. That belief discharges 'B' of any legal duty to establish whether or not 'C' was in fact armed. His shooting was a reasonable response to a genuinely held - if mistaken - belief that 'C' was armed and was reaching for a weapon.

Three men with knuckledusters, or knives, or baseball bats. They would be armed. But not heavily.

The IPCC don't make decisions as to whether someone is charged - that's down to the CPS. They can make a decision regarding disciplinary action.

I think that the point is that the system isn't necessarily just hence the result cannot be described as justice.