Mark Duggan shooting: court considers appeal against inquest verdict

The mother of Mark Duggan, whose fatal shooting by police in 2011 triggered riots across the country, is going to the court of appeal on Thursday in what she says is her “continuing search for justice” for her son.

Duggan, 29, was shot and killed by a Metropolitan police firearms officer known as V53 in Tottenham, north London, on 4 August 2011. Police said they believed he was planning an attack and that he was in possession of a handgun.

At Duggan’s inquest the jury found that he was lawfully killed despite deciding he was unarmed at the time. Duggan’s mother, Pamela, 58, and other family members are seeking to quash the inquest conclusion, arguing that the coroner misdirected the jury. They say that Judge Keith Cutler, who sat as assistant deputy coroner in the inquest, should have made clear that if they found Duggan to be unarmed at the time he was fatally shot they could not return a conclusion of lawful killing.

At an earlier permission hearing, Lord Justice Sales said the questions for the jury at the inquest had been “framed too narrowly”. At the heart of the case is whether V53’s belief that Duggan was armed and dangerous when he was shot was justified. At the inquest hearing, V53 had said he believed Duggan was carrying a gun.

Pamela Duggan said that Thursday’s hearing has given her new hope that her son will get justice.

“People say to me that losing Mark will get easier as time goes by, but it’s more than five years since the police assassinated him – it wasn’t a killing, it wasn’t a murder, it was an assassination – and it hasn’t got any easier.

“I have photos of Mark all over the house and sometimes when I’m by myself I look at the photos and talk to him even though I know he’s gone. His oldest son is 15 now. He looks just like his dad and he misses Mark so much. I have kept all the newspaper cuttings so that I can talk to him properly about his dad when he’s older and to Mark’s other children.”

She said that one of the moments fixed in her mind for ever was when the inquest jury returned their verdict saying that although it believed that Duggan was unarmed at the time that he was shot dead that he was lawfully killed.

“I was so shocked that I couldn’t even get up off the chair in the court. I just froze. My other son, Marlon, had to help me get up. The only thing that would make my heart and my mind feel easier would be to have a new verdict that Mark was unlawfully killed by the police.

“Mark was 29 when he died but he will always be my baby. The police have destroyed my family. When you take a life you can’t ever get that life back. You don’t expect your child to die before you do. I’ve been through a lot. Since Mark died there has only been sadness – I lost his dad, Bruno, and I’ve been treated for cancer. But whatever happens I will continue to fight for justice for Mark until I take my last breath. The case in the court of appeal has given me new hope. If there is justice for Mark some of this sadness will end.”

The family’s solicitor, Cyrilia Davies Knight, from Birnberg Peirce solicitors, said: “There are serious questions about whether this highly trained police officer, who shot Mark in broad daylight from an unobstructed view a few metres away from him, made a mistake that was reasonable and lawful.”

She added: “A death of this kind is the cause of uniquely intense public concern as demonstrated by the disturbances after Mark’s death. The inquest did not consider whether V53’s mistake was reasonable and lawful so it didn’t fulfill one of its key functions – to assuage public anxiety after a death like this.”

Source: The Guardian