The Independent Police Complaints Comission ruled today that there should be no disciplinary action against the two Metropolitan Police officers who shot dead Scotsman Harry Stanley in Hackney in 1999, in the mistaken belief that the wooden table-leg he was carrying was a sawn off shotgun.
The IPCC nevertheless criticised the police procedure for writing up post incident reports:
we do recommend that the police service consider very carefully whether their current post incident procedures, which are not significantly changed since Mr Stanley’s death, are in the best interests of their officers and the public interest.
The police cannot have it both ways. The IPCC has already made it clear that our investigators will not treat officers who fire fatal shots on duty as suspects unless there is evidence to suggest that a criminal offence may have been committed. If that is the case, it is difficult to see why they should not be treated immediately like any other significant witness, who are not given access to legal advice and permitted to pool their recollections before giving an account. Video recordings of incident debriefs, which could later be shown if necessary alongside expert advice about the effect of perceptual distortion on the accounts, would provide a credibility with the public that is lacking in the present system.
We recommend that the ACPO Committee on the Police Use of Firearms in conjunction with the IPCC revise the current protocol as a matter of urgency. (IPCC decision)
Mr Stanley’s widow Irene had this to say:
“I am bitterly disappointed by the IPCC decision to accept the Surrey Police report on discipline charges. The officers walk away even though their accounts ‘lack credibility’. This isn’t justice. The public can’t have confidence in a system that ends this way. I fear the police will see this as a green light for their ‘shoot to kill’ policy and that innocent people are at greater risk from armed police after today’s decision.”
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