Mark Duggan Death: Family Prepare for Funeral; Police Set to Hand Back Gun to Accused Officer

THE POLICE MARKSMAN whose deathly actions sparked last month’s riots is to be handed back his gun, as thousands prepare for tomorrow’s funeral of his victim, Mark Duggan.

In leaks from official sources to The Times newspaper, it is suggested that the firearms officer who shot Duggan dead on 4 August will be cleared of any wrong-doing on the basis that he had “an honest-held belief that he was in imminent danger of him or his colleagues being shot”.

The same source said that “the Metropolitan Police are ready to reinstate the officer” to the Met’s firearms unit, where he will again be issued with a gun.

In other leaks, it is understood that the gun found in the taxi used by Duggan contained none of the dead man’s finger prints.

Duggan’s brother, Shaun Hall, concludes that the Met “were clearly operating a shoot to kill policy that day.

“They are supposed to disable, not kill, suspects. If they hadn’t shot and killed Mark there would have been no riots.”

The last time the Met came under serious fire for a shoot-to kill policy was in 2005 when Jean Charles de Menezes was gunned down at Stockwell Tube station by officers who thought, mistakenly, that he was a suicide bomber.

Back then, it emerged that de Menezes had been a victim of a secret anti-terrorist shoot-to-kill policy labelled Operation Kratos.

But even without such cloak-and-dagger policies, police officers are usually on safe ground if they shoot someone dead, as the “honest-held belief” defence is difficult to counter.

“If the defendant may have been labouring under a mistake as to facts, he must be judged according to his mistaken belief of the facts: that is so whether the mistake was, on an objective view, a reasonable mistake or not,” as the law has it.

Nevertheless, the timing of today’s leak – on the eve of Duggan’s funeral – is likely to be seen as a deliberate provocation by many of those angry at his death.

Duggan’s funeral goes ahead at the New Testament Church of God, in Wood Green tomorrow morning.

The funeral cortege is due to travel through the Broadwater Farm estate, where several thousand people are expected to line the streets to pay their respects.