Chris Kaba shooting: Will the Home Secretary’s proposals erode public trust in policing?

On 21 October 2024, Martyn Blake, the firearms officer who killed Chris Kaba, was acquitted of murder. His justification for firing the fatal shot was that he thought Kaba was using the vehicle he was driving as a weapon. He claimed that he believed Kaba was trying to escape through fast-paced driving in an attempt to ram himself free, causing an immediate threat to Blake’s colleagues’ lives. The evidence at trial was that the speed of the Audi never reached more than 12 miles per hour.

Kaba is the fourth unarmed man shot dead by the Metropolitan Police since 2005. All of these men were black or of mixed race. The others include Mark Duggan, Jermaine Baker and Azelle Rodney. Although race didn’t feature in Blake’s trial there is a long history of distrust between police and Black communities, as is echoed in the Government’s 2022 Inclusive Britain Report. Statistics show that the police use force disproportionately against black people, especially young black men. In 2023, the Casey report found that the Metropolitan police are institutionally racist, and specifically highlighted the toxic racist culture within the firearms unit.

On 21 October 2024, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, stated that armed officers need more protection and expressed his concerns that the “broken” accountability system might lead to a loss of morale among firearms officers. He has called for officers to be exempt from criminal charges for shooting unless prosecutors can prove that the officer in question departed from what was taught during their training, and wants criminal investigations and disciplinary proceedings to be expedited so officers are not tied up for lengthy periods away from their duties.

Since 1990, there have been 1906 recorded deaths in or following police custody. However, only one officer was found guilty of manslaughter in 2021; not a single firearms officer has ever been convicted of murder after a police shooting.

Following Blake’s trial, the Home Secretary has announced reforms as part of the government’s commitment to “put confidence back into policing” and to “reassure both the police and the public that the system of vetting and accountability is working”. Amongst the proposed reforms is a rapid independent review to consider the legal test for use of force in misconduct proceedings and the threshold for unlawful killing in inquests.

In response to the conclusion of Blake’s trial, Deborah Coles, the directory of the charity INQUEST has said: ‘This verdict must not now be used by the police lobby to further dilute police accountability. We know that Chris’ death is not an isolated case but part of systemic racism and stereotyping that equates Black men with dangerousness.’

Any attempts to water down the relevant legal tests in this way would be both premature, and wrong in principle.

First of all it must be borne in mind that the inquest into Chris Kaba’s death has yet to take place – so it is difficult to see how the case highlights any need for the law around inquests to change.

In a police shooting, an unlawful killing verdict could typically only be returned if the jury believed the elements of gross negligence manslaughter or unlawful act manslaughter have been established.

Gross Negligence Manslaughter
The following key elements must be proved:

The individual owed a duty of care to the deceased
That duty of care was breached
The risk of death was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the misconduct
The breach caused the death*
Having regard to the involved risk, the misconduct was grossly negligent so as to be condemned as manslaughter.
*The case of R v Cheshire [1991] 1 WLR 844 established that it need not be the sole cause of death, provided the act/ omission contributed significantly to it.

Unlawful Act Manslaughter
The following key elements must be proved:

A deliberate act which is unlawful (e.g an assault)
The act is objectively dangerous, i.e. a sober, reasonable and responsible person of the perpetrator’s age and gender would inevitably consider the act to be likely to cause the deceased some physical harm (albeit not serious harm)
The act causes death, even though death or harm of any kind is not intended.
The standard of proof which must be met for a conclusion of unlawful killing to be returned is the civil standard, based on a “balance of probabilities”. In other words, the jury can return this conclusion if they are satisfied that it is more likely than not that it occurred. That is a lower standard than that required in a criminal trial, i.e. “beyond reasonable doubt”.

This lowering of the standard of proof followed the Supreme Court’s judgement in R (Maughan) v. HM Senior Coroner for Oxfordshire [2020] UKSC 46 and came as a welcome change by bringing inquests in line with the general principle of fact-finding, given that an inquest is not a criminal trial.

However, the extent to which Maughan has affected accountability and to which lessons have been learnt for the future, in cases involving deaths in state custody, remains to be seen. Unlawful killing conclusions at inquests into deaths involving the police are extremely rare. INQUEST suggest that there were only 9 of these verdicts between 1990 and 2017 in the UK. Since the change in the law in 2020 there has only been 1 verdict of unlawful killing relating to the police, which involved a death following a restraint by Bedfordshire Police.  It is therefore clear that unlawful killing conclusions in cases involving the police are exceedingly rare. As Coroner’s statistics suggest, even conclusions of unlawful killing in general (i.e. not specifically involving police) represent less than 1% of the short-form conclusions recorded in any event. Any notion that police officers are ‘not protected’ by the system, and are victims of overzealous attempts to punish them, are simply not true or supported by evidence.

Police chiefs often state that firearms officers act in extremely dangerous and volatile situations, where they are forced to make split-second decisions under pressure, meaning their actions should be judged sympathetically in this context. However, if a member of the public is directly involved in someone’s death, they are invariably treated as a suspect of potentially a criminal act pending investigation. It is imperative we hold police to the same standard or we risk undermining public trust and irreparably breaking down confidence in the policing system.

Therefore, the Home Secretary’s proposal to reform the threshold for returning conclusions of unlawful killing raises significant concerns about accountability and justice. Lowering the threshold could lead to inconsistent findings, undermining the integrity of inquests and potentially allowing for further incidents of unlawful killing by police officers to go unaddressed.

Temi Mwale and Kayza Rose of the Justice for Chris Kaba Campaign, said:

“Martyn Blake’s acquittal is painful proof that our lives are not valued by this system. The fight for accountability, justice, and racial equity has spanned decades, and we honor all those who have contributed. Despite today’s verdict, our commitment remains unwavering. For the Kaba family, justice was never just about a conviction – it’s about systemic change, a fight we will not abandon as a campaign.

This outcome reinforces the harsh reality that police can kill without consequence. No one can be safe while the police can kill with impunity. We stand with the families who lost loved ones before Chris, still seeking justice. This verdict is not the end – it only strengthens our resolve. Now is the time to join the fight for a future where justice and accountability are the norm, and no one is above the law.

True justice for our community must go beyond the criminal legal system. It must deliver real repair, healing, and lasting transformation. Rest in Power Chris Kaba.”

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