Home Secretary to complete review into accountability of firearms officers

Yvette Cooper will revive and complete a probe into how firearms police officers who take fatal shots in the line of duty are held to account.

The Home Secretary is expected to make a Commons statement on the review into the accountability of firearms officers, days after police marksman Martyn Blake, 40, was cleared of the murder of Chris Kaba.

Sir Keir Starmer would not be drawn into commenting on the jury decision in the trial, but told reporters his Government would pick up the accountability review launched by the previous Tory administration.

Suella Braverman pledged to review the ways that firearms officers who take fatal shots are held accountable when she was home secretary in 2023.

Plans to give swifter decisions to suspended officers and more clarity to victims were among the changes touted by the previous government.

Tory ministers also considered raising the threshold for referring firearms officers for prosecution.

Speaking on the way to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa, Sir Keir told reporters: “We are going to pick that up and complete that accountability review because it is important that the public have confidence in the police including of course the armed police.”

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley is among the policing leaders to have called the current accountability system “broken” and expressed concerns it might lead to a loss of morale among firearms officers.

The Prime Minister added: “It’s also important that the police know that we have confidence in them doing a very difficult job so we will pick that up.”

He said the Home Secretary would make a statement on Wednesday updating the Commons “on where we’ve got with that review”.

Mr Kaba, who was 24, was unarmed when Mr Blake shot him through the windscreen of an Audi Q8 as he tried to ram his way past police cars on September 5 2022.

But he was a “core member” of one of London’s most dangerous criminal gangs and was allegedly directly linked to two shootings in the six days before he was shot dead by police, a court has revealed to the public after lifting reporting restrictions.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct is separately reviewing whether Mr Blake should still face disciplinary proceedings, the PA news agency understands.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir also insisted he was “really angry” about having to release prisoners early in a bid to free-up spaces in overcrowded prisons, after one of them shouted “Big up Keir Starmer” on his exit from HMP Swaleside in Kent.

Asked about the incident, the Prime Minister said: “I hope I’ve made that pretty clear to any of you who’ve asked me about it. I didn’t spend five years of my life as chief prosecutor putting people in prison in order to, as PM, have to release them because our prisons are overfilled.

“But we’ve got to do it because they are at bursting point.”