Chris Kaba death: Home Secretary vows to reform how police are held to account

The individuality of firearms officers volition beryllium kept concealed if they are prosecuted unless they are convicted, the Home Secretary announced successful the aftermath of the Chris Kaba case.

Yvette Cooper unveiled a drawstring of reforms arsenic she told MPs a reappraisal of however constabulary who instrumentality fatal shots successful the enactment of work are held to relationship recovered the strategy was “not commanding the assurance of either the nationalist oregon the police” amid wider concerns astir disciplinary proceedings.

The determination comes days aft marksman Martyn Blake was cleared of Mr Kaba’s murder.

The 24-year-old was unarmed erstwhile Mr Blake changeable him done the windscreen of an Audi Q8 arsenic helium tried to ram his mode past constabulary cars successful Lambeth, southbound London, successful 2022.

When reporting restrictions were lifted aft the lawsuit concluded, it emerged Mr Kaba was a “core member” of 1 of London’s astir unsafe transgression gangs and was allegedly straight linked to 2 shootings successful the six days earlier helium was changeable dormant by police.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is reviewing whether Mr Blake should inactive look disciplinary proceedings.

The 40-year-old is reportedly surviving successful hiding, fearing for his beingness and his household aft a £10,000 bounty was offered in revenge for Mr Kaba’s decease to anyone prepared to termination him.

Ms Cooper said the lawsuit happened “against a backdrop of wider and long-standing concerns astir accountability, standards and confidence” and amid “fallen assemblage assurance successful policing and the transgression justness strategy crossed the country”, peculiarly among Black communities.

Speaking successful the Commons connected Wednesday, Ms Cooper said: “The accountability reappraisal recovered that the existent strategy for holding constabulary officers to relationship is not commanding the assurance of either the nationalist oregon the police.

“Accountability and misconduct proceedings are excessively often plagued by delays stretching for years, which are damaging for complainants, officers and forces alike, and the strategy has go overmuch much complex, with disorder implicit aggregate thresholds for antithetic investigations, a deficiency of clarity, particularly involving specializer capabilities.

“There are besides wider concerns astir the misconduct system, due to the fact that the absorption erstwhile things spell incorrect tin extremity up being wholly connected the decisions of the idiosyncratic officer.

“So systems failings similar mediocre training, unmanageable caseloads oregon wider mendacious practices are not sufficiently considered oregon followed up truthful excessively small changes.”

As good arsenic introducing a “presumption of anonymity for firearms officers taxable to transgression proceedings pursuing a constabulary shooting successful the people of their nonrecreational duties, up to the constituent of conviction”, Ms Cooper vowed to rise the threshold for officers facing tribunal truthful it matches the measurement the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) uses for making charging decisions astir members of the public.

“Currently, that threshold is little for constabulary officers, and that is not justified,” she said.

Bereaved families volition besides beryllium fixed the close to entreaty erstwhile the IOPC decides not to question a complaint against an officer.

The reappraisal began nether the erstwhile Conservative authorities erstwhile past location caput Suella Braverman pledged to reappraisal the ways that firearms officers who instrumentality fatal shots are held accountable, with the enactment continuing aft Labour won the wide election.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is among those who antecedently branded the existent accountability strategy arsenic “broken” and raised concerns it mightiness pb to a nonaccomplishment of morale among firearms officers.