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IRR NEWS Framing the death of Mark Duggan by Betsy Barkas 17 April 2014 As the family of Mark Duggan launch a legal team asked the high court to quash the judicial review of the inquest verdict, IRR verdict as perverse, arguing that Judge Cutler, News examines the wider context of the presiding over the inquest, should have pro- death. vided clearer direction to the jury. The inquest also raised questions about the possibility of On 4 August 2011, Mark Duggan got out of a police officers conferring as they produced taxi on Ferry Lane in Tottenham and was shot their statements, and the family was given dead by armed police: within hours, stories permission3 to challenge these practices in about a dramatic ‘shootout’, a ‘violent gang- March 2014. Despite the lengthy inquest and ster’, and gangland ‘revenge killings’ began to the long wait, there are still many unanswered circulate. Two years later in September 2013, questions. the inquest jury was told1 that they were on a What is known is that the death of Mark ‘quest to find the truth’,2 a process that lasted Duggan will go down in history as the event for three months and involved ninety-three that ‘sparked’ the August 2011 riots. As well as witnesses. understanding this important connection, we In January 2014, after several days of delib- also need to be aware that the wider political erations, the jury eventually delivered their context of the riots has had implications for verdict of lawful killing, and the public gallery the subsequent investigation of the shooting erupted in disbelief and outrage. All ten jurors of Mark Duggan. Right from the beginning, the agreed that there had been a gun in the taxi police, Independent Police Complaints with Mark Duggan. Eight of them disbelieved Commission (IPCC) and judiciary, as well as the evidence of the police marksman who shot the media, have played important roles in him, and were sure the gun was not in his determining how the shooting was framed, hands when he was shot dead. But despite long before the jury sat down in the court- this, an 8-2 majority concluded that he had room. been killed lawfully. Their explanation for the Trident and the secret evidence regime whereabouts of the gun was that he must have thrown it from the taxi before it was sur- The policing operation that led to Mark rounded – but no witnesses gave evidence to Duggan’s death was run by Trident, a unit support this idea. Immediately, the family’s within the Metropolitan Police specialising in gun crime within London’s black community. Trident was set up in 1998 following a series of shootings and murders in Lambeth and Brent. At the time, there was widespread con- cern within the black community about these shootings, and so there was support for a dedicated unit to tackle gun crime. An Independent Advisory Group (IAG) was set up to ensure community oversight and accounta- bility in this most sensitive area of policing. The IAG was often very vocal in its criticism of Trident’s operations, particularly its mostly 4 The family of Mark Duggan at the High Court white workforce. Over the years Trident oper- following the inquest verdict ations shifted. As well as ‘reactive’ investiga- IRR News 1 tions of shootings, it began using ‘proactive’ teams5 conducting covert investigations of Jury’s key findings particular individuals suspected of having connections to gun crime.6 • Did the Met police and Serious Legislation passed over the last fifteen years Organised Crime Agency do enough to has progressively increased the use of secret evidence, which has significantly undermined gather and react to intelligence? The the accountability of policing operations. In jury decided unanimously that more 2008 legislation was passed enabling the use could have been done to gather intelli- of evidence in court from ‘anonymous witness- gence on both Mark Duggan and Kevin es’ to secure convictions.7 And eight years before that, the Regulation of Investigatory Hutchinson-Foster, the man later con- Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 was passed, protect- victed of supplying the gun to Duggan. ing so-called ‘intercept evidence’ (phone taps, • Did Mark Duggan have the gun with for example) from being heard in court. It was him in the taxi immediately before the the use of secret evidence under RIPA powers stop? The jury decided unanimously that caused the collapse of the inquest into that Mark Duggan did have the gun the death of Azelle Rodney, a black man who was shot dead by police officers in April 2005 with him in the taxi immediately in north London. During the original inquest before the stop. the Rodney family demanded to hear evidence • Did Mark Duggan have the gun in about the police pursuit that the police were his hand when he was shot? The withholding. The inquest could not continue, majority (eight) were sure that he did and it was eventually decided to hold an not have a gun in his hand. They dis- Inquiry that had greater powers to close hear- ings, restrict attendance and withhold sensi- believed the evidence of the officer tive evidence. who shot him dead, who claimed he fired in self-defence. The suppression of some of the evidence relating to Azelle Rodney’s death, and the dif- • How did the gun get onto the grass ficulties that ensued, were cited by the gov- area where it was later found? The ernment as a reason to extend the use of majority (nine) concluded that Mark secret evidence to civil proceedings, including threw the gun onto the grass. Eight of inquests. These proposals were eventually them thought that he had thrown it brought in with the Justice and Security Act, from the minicab as soon as it came to which came into law in 2013, although due to widespread objection they excluded inquests a stop. (There had been no evidence (see ‘Secret justice = injustice’, IRR News 23 heard to support this theory.) February 2012).8 However, the Azelle Rodney • Conclusion of the jury as to the death: The majority (eight) concluded Azelle Rodney that Mark Duggan had been lawfully killed. This finding was described as perverse by the family’s lawyers, given that the jury had found that he was unarmed when shot dead. Read the full conclusions here: http://dugganinquest.independent.go v.uk/docs/Jurys_Determination_and_C onclusion(1).pdf IRR News 2 Inquiry9 chair Sir Christopher Holland being a ‘senior’ member of the gang. Due to appeared to undermine this assertion when the fact that the intelligence was exempt from he said that much of the secret evidence did being scrutinised in court (due to the RIPA not need to be secret.10 The Inquiry eventually legislation), most of the assertions remain found in 2013, nine years after his death, that untested. What is known is that Mark Duggan he had been unlawfully killed. had never spent time in prison, and that his By the time the circumstances surrounding criminal record consisted of two minor convic- Mark Duggan’s death came under the spot- tions, one for receiving stolen goods and one light, the secret evidence regime had become for possession of cannabis, the most recent in established, and for some time it was uncer- 2007. Both had attracted only small fines. tain whether there would be an inquest at all. Although police made a variety of other asser- 12 Intelligence for Trident’s operations came from tions, about drugs being stored at Mark ‘intercept evidence’ obtained by the Serious Duggan’s home, that he had fired shots in a Organised Crime Agency (SOCA, merged into car park, that they had a ‘wealth’ of intelli- the National Crime Agency since October gence that he had ready access to guns, they 2013), and so was protected under RIPA legis- also admitted that until 4 August, they did not lation. The inquest had to be stopped and re- have evidence necessary to arrest him. Some started, with the original coroner replaced by of the intelligence, they said, was of very poor Judge Cutler, who could consider the secret quality, equivalent to something being said to evidence. Crimestoppers by an anonymous caller who had overheard something in a pub. The claims Facts and conjecture about Mark Duggan being a ‘senior member’ of a gang were made time and time again by According to evidence given by its senior the police, during the trial of the man convict- investigating officer11 at the inquest, Operation ed of supplying the gun (Kevin Hutchinson- Dibri was a Trident investigation that had been Foster, see box), up to and during the inquest, running since November 2008, focused on and on each of these occasions were repeated ‘dismantling’ Tottenham Man Dem (TMD), a by the media as fact13. group the police said was involved in the sup- ply of guns and Class A drugs. Dibri focused The shooting on around 100 people, with a ‘core’ of around 15 forty-eight people. According to evidence heard at the inquest, Trident’s Operation Dibri planned a four-day While giving evidence about the subjects of operation from 3-7 August 2011 to recover Operation Dibri, including Mark Duggan, offi- guns from around six people, including Mark cers made assertions about crimes they Duggan. This operation involved officers from thought he had committed, and about his Trident working together with specialist Trial of Kevin Hutchinson-Foster Following the shooting of Mark Duggan, Kevin Hutchinson-Foster was convicted of supplying the gun to him. Two trials took place, which featured important evidence about the shoot- ing, and were covered extensively in the press.