Mark Duggan verdict: More questions than answers

The backdrop to this case is one of a deep divide between Britain’s Black communities and the Metropolitan Police force: Levels of police Stop and Search have been at rates not seen since the 1970’s. A retired undercover police officer recently admitted that instead of helping track down the killers of Stephen Lawrence, and assisting their family, they were tasked to wilfully smear the family and their associates.

In recent months, a police officer Alex Macfarlane was tapped admitting physically, and verbally abusing a Black man. But was found not guilty by a jury claiming he was having philosophical discussion about the N word. The Met Police later sacked him for the same offence.

Then when we heard the evidence unfold about the moments before and after Mark Duggan was shot, how a Jury found the killing ‘lawful’ is frankly breathtaking. With so much conflictng evidence an 'Open verdict' would have been more appropiate.

The Jury heard that the officer who shot Duggan said that he saw him with the gun in a sock and that he could make out the barrel, handle and trigger guard. According to the officer, “The next thing he does, he starts to move the gun away from his body. He raises the weapon, moved it a couple of inches away from his body.”

But how did this officer see a sock and a barrel and handle that didn’t exist? How then did he know that the gun was in a sock when the sock and the gun were supposedly thrown before the police confrontation? Another officer corroborated the first officer'sstatement.

And how come there were no fingerprints or DNA either on the gun or the sock. Bear this mind that you know you are being chased by the police and as the police suggest you have a gun on your person, it is likely in the extreme that you’d be perspiring and that some DNA would then be either on the gun or the sock, but in this case nothing.

Finally, how is that two highly trained police officers saw a non-existent gun in a sock ready to be fired, and whole highly trained team failed to see a real gun in a sock being discarded over a fence moments before Duggan was shot? The evidence simply doesn’t add up!

When the Duggan family say ‘No peace without justice’, they mean they will not rest until these and other answers are honestly and effectively dealt. Why should they, and why should we!

Simon Woolley