A Met firearms officer has been found not guilty of murdering Chris Kaba in a police shooting
Metropolitan Police marksman Martyn Blake, 40, has been cleared at the Old Bailey of the murder of Chris Kaba.
Chris, 24, was shot in the head through the windscreen of an Audi during a ‘hard stop’ on September 5, 2022.
A jury deliberated for some three hours on Monday to find Metropolitan Police firearms officer Martyn Blake not guilty of Chris Kaba’s murder.
Standing in the dock of the Old Bailey, smartly dressed Mr Blake, 40, appeared to be briefly overcome with emotion.
He breathed out, puffed his cheeks and turned away in an apparent show of relief.
The family of Mr Kaba, who sat in the well of the court, sat in stony silence and made no immediate reaction.
Helen Lumuanganu and Prosper Kaba, the mother and father of Chris Kaba, were present during the sentencing (Picture: PA)
The Crown Prosecution Service defended its decision to prosecute cleared firearms officer Martyn Blake, saying it was ‘right that the case was put before the jury for them to scrutinise and to decide.’
A videograb from footage of the initial pursuit of the Audi driven by Chris Kaba (CPS/PA) (PA Media)
Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: ‘First and foremost I want to say that my thoughts and those of the CPS remain with the family of Chris Kaba.
‘Today armed Metropolitan Police officer Martyn Blake has been found not guilty of the charge of murder. We fully respect the jury’s decision.
‘This has been a complex and sensitive case and the decision to prosecute was made after an in-depth consideration of all the available evidence.
‘We recognise that firearms officers operate under enormous pressure, but it is our responsibility to put cases before a jury that meet our test for prosecution, and we are satisfied that test was met in this case.
‘It is therefore right that the case was put before the jury for them to scrutinise and to decide. They have carefully considered each piece of evidence, including video and Martyn Blake’s own account. They have made up their minds in the proper way and we thank them for doing so.’
The car Chris was in had been used as a getaway vehicle in a shooting the previous evening, and was hemmed in by police cars in Kirkstall Gardens after an officer recognised its registration number.
Evidence in court showed footage of the fatal shooting (Picture: CPS)
Kaba’s death sparked marches across London (Picture: PA)
Mr Kaba drove backwards and forwards trying to ram his way free, which Mr Blake told jurors made him believe one of his colleagues was about to die, and so he opened fire to stop the car.
A fellow firearms officer known as DS87 said he would have taken a shot if Mr Blake had not, and another identified by the cypher E156 said he was ‘fractions of a second’ away from doing the same.
Another, NX109, got the finger of his glove caught in the Audi’s door handle and just managed to wrench it free as it moved forward, telling the jury he thought he would be dragged between it and a Tesla parked nearby.
Prosecutors argued that Mr Blake had misjudged the risk, exaggerated the threat to his colleagues in statements following the shooting, and had aimed at Mr Kaba’s head, all of which he denied.
In his defence, jurors heard a series of glowing testimonials from colleagues and senior officers.
Defence barrister Patrick Gibbs KC said Mr Blake was no ‘RoboCop’ with the ‘nanosecond’ reactions of a computer.
He told jurors: ‘He is not a robot, he is a human being with a human brain who did this to the best of his ability.’
Police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct will now consider whether Mr Blake should face a disciplinary hearing.
Questions have already been raised about how firearms officers are held to account in fatal shootings, with dozens of Mr Blake’s colleagues downing tools when he was first charged with murder.
Police bosses raised concerns that officers would no longer be willing to volunteer to take on firearms training due to the levels of scrutiny that they could face if they had to take a fatal shot.
Mr Blake had never fired a gun at a human being, or seen a gun fired at a human being, before the night Mr Kaba died.
The jury heard that those close to Mr Blake had been hesitant about him becoming a police marksman but that he felt it was ‘the best job’ in the Metropolitan Police.
Official figures show that in England and Wales in the year to March 2023 there were 18,395 police firearms operations.
Police weapons were deliberately fired at 10 of these incidents, resulting in three fatalities.
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